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RAYMOND'S 

PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 




GEOEGE WASHINGTON 




ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



THE 



PATRIOTIC SPEAKER: 



CONSISTING- OF 



SPECIMENS OF MODERN ELOQUENCE, 

TOGETHER WITH ' V; f *"' / 

POETICAL EXTEAOTS ADAPTED FOE EECITATIOff, 



DRAMATIC PIECES FOR EXHIBITIONS. 1 






y 



BY 



EOBEKT R. RAYMOND, A. M., 

LATE PBOFESSOR OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATUB1 

IN THE 
BROOKLYN COLLEGIATE AND POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 



NEW YORK: 
A. S. BARNES & BURR, 51 JOHN STREET. 

CHICAGO: GEO. & C. W. SHERWOOD. 



1864. 

/L 




Pit 



*1 ' 
VALUABLE WORKS ON ELOCUTION. 

PUBLISHED BY BARNES & BURR, 

NEW YOKE. 

THE LITTLE ORATOR; or, Primary School Speaker. By Charles Nortit- 
end, A.M., author of "Teacher and Parent," "Teachers' Assistant," etc. In Three 
Parts. Part I. Poetry. Part II. Prose. Part III. Dialogues. 178 pp., 18mo., cloth. 

This little work is a judicious selection of simple and attractive pieces for the use of beginners 
in the study of Elocution. It has been the compiler's aim to adapt the work to the capacities of 
children under twelve years of age, and at the same time to have the matter such as will make 
proper moral impressions. 

THE NATIONAL ORATOR. A Selection of Pieces for the use of young Stu- 
dents in Schools and Academies. By Charles Northend, A.M. 312 pp., 12mo, 
cloth. 

In this volume is found such variety as will tend to meet the wants of teachers and pupils. 
Some of the pieces may be more suitable for exercises in reading than speaking, and a few will 
be found adapted to conceit recitation. The volume is commended to the attention of teachers, 
with the hope that it may prove a valuable and pleasant aid, and tend still more to give impor- 
tance and interest to the too often dreaded subject of declamation. 

ENTERTAINING DIALOGUES. Designed for the use of young Students in 
Schools and Academies. By Charles Northend, A.M. 312 pp., 12mo, cloth. 
The practice of rehearsing dialogues in schools has greatly increased within the last ten years, 
causing quite a demand for new selections. In this volume may be found extracts eminently 
adapted, it is thought, to cultivate the dramatic capacities of the student. 

INTRODUCTORY LESSONS IN READING AND ELOCUTION. By 

R. G. Parker and J. C. Zachos. 195 pp., 12mo, half bound. 

This work possesses many advantages which commend it to favor, among which are the fol- 
lowing : It is adapted to all classes and schools, from the highest to the lowest. It contains a 
practical illustration of all the marks employed in written language ; also, lessons for the culti- 
vation, improvement, and strengthening of the voice, and instructions as well as exercises in a 
great variety of the principles of rhetorical reading, which cannot fail to render it a valuable 
auxiliary in the hands of any teacher. 

ANALYTIC ELOCUTION. An Analysis of the Powers of the Voice, for the 
purpose of Expression in Speaking. Illustrated by copious Examples and marked by 
a system of Notation. By J. C. Zachos, A.M., author of "New American Speaker," 
etc. 320 pp., 12mo, cloth. 

The author has prepared his work for a more thorough analytic study of the art of Elocution 
than is generally given. He has based his analysis of the functions of the human voice chiefly 
npon that of Dr. Rush, the only scientific work on the voice that has ever been given to the 
world. Some subjects that are not usually treated of in books on Elocution, here receive es- 
pecial attention. The chapters on Phonology, on the Analysis of the Sentence, on Rhythm, and 
that on Gesture are of particular value. The new and excellent system of notation is also an im- 
portant feature. 

SELF-CULTURE in Beading, Speaking, and Conversation. Designed for 
the use of Schools-, Colleges, and Home Instruction. By William Sherwood. 
380 pp., 12mo, cloth. 

This work is upon a new plan ; it aims to draw the attention of pupils to a proper estimate of 
their own powers, and to show them how they can best improve themselves. 

THE NATIONAL FIFTH RE A DERj Containing a Treatise on Elocution, Exer- 
cises in Beading and Declamation, with Biographical Sketches, and copious Notes. 
By Richard G. Parker and J. Madison Watson. 600 pp. 
This is the final number of Parker & Watson's Reading Series. 

THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. By Prof. Eaymond. 524 pp. 

A book for the times. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by / 
A. S. BAENES & BURR, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
Southern District of New York. 



"20") 2- 

Stereotyped by Smi-e A/McDougal, 84Beekman Street. 



INTKODUCTOKY NOTE. 



The compiler of these Extracts for the use of the young 
declaimer, offers an apology for adding another to the 
numerous books which have been prepared for a similar 
purpose. The work has grown out of a necessity en- 
countered in his own experience as a teacher. All the 
existing " Speakers" of which he has any knowledge repre- 
sent the eloquence of a Past, eventful and inspiring indeed, 
but eclipsed, in the estimation of the young American, by 
the all-absorbing Present. Many of the extracts in this 
volume have been gathered, in the last three years, in 
desultory efforts to answer the inquiries of pupils for 
"pieces" reflecting the great interests of the time; and to 
these, others have been added, carefully collated from the 
best rhetorical models of the day, — at the Bar, in the 
Legislature, on the Platform and in the Pulpit. 

The poetical selections are furnished to gratify a too 
common desire for pieces adapted to dramatic and descrip- 
tive recitation. The compiler cannot, however, refrain 



VI INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



from seizing this occasion to exhort teachers of elocution 
to discourage the use of rhymed poetry for such purposes, 
except by those who are fitted, through native talent or 
careful training, to deliver it without false intonation. 
Undoubtedly, much of the bad elocution conspicuous in 
modern oratory may be traced to the unguided and unre- 
strained recitation of rhythmical passages, so generally 
allowed to the boys in our schools. The great majority 
of pupils may be taught to deliver their own sentiments 
or those of others, expressed in straight-forward, honest 
prose, — if not with elegance, at least with correctness and 
force. On the other hand, no experienced teacher needs 
to be informed that the graces of dramatic elocution can 
be imparted only to the gifted few ; and many ill-advised 
aspirants, in aiming at an accomplishment to which they 
were not born, lose the opportunity of acquiring what 
would be of greater value to them — a plain, manly, ora- 
torical style. Above all, let no student, not even the most 
gifted— confine himself to the recitation of poetry. To 
this department of the present work, special care has been 
given; mere literary excellence, without special adapta- 
tion to the uses of the rostra, not being considered suf- 
ficient to secure the admission of any extract. 

The dramatic passages at the end of the book are such 
as experience has already proved easy of performance and 
effective, in a school of boys. In addition to these, the 
compiler recommends the scene from Shakespeare's Julius 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Vll 

Caesar, containing the speech of Mark Antony — a passage 
mnch more effective as a dramatic whole, than when cut 
down to a monologue, as in many books of oratory. 

With these remarks, the Patriotic Speaker is submitted 
to the judgment of those for whose advantage it is in- 
tended. 

R. H. R. 

Heidelberg, Germany, 
July 13, 1864. 



CONTENTS 



L-SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 

Page 

The Prospects of the Republic Story. 17 

The American Experiment of Self Government. . . .- Everett. 18 

Threats of Slaveholders Defied .- Tallmadge. 18 

Slavery Extension to be Resisted Tallmadge. 19 

Free and Slave Territory Contrasted Tallmadge. 20 

The True Basis of Democracy R. R. R. 21 

Christianity and Democracy Identical in Purpose R. R. R. 22 

Power of the General Government over Slavery Clay. 24 

Dissolution of the Union Clay. 25 

Supremacy of Conscience Storrs, 26 

Admission of California Seward. 27 

Revolution in the Interest of Slavery Seward. 28 

The Senate of Rome and the American Congress Kossuth. 30 

Practical Working of the Fugitive Slave Act Sumner. 31 

Christian Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act Sumner. 33 

Slavery Forced into Kansas Seward. 35 

The "Wrongs of Kansas Sumner. 36 

Fanaticism Sumner. 38 

Slavery's Crime against Kansas Sumner. 39 

Organized Emigration to Kansas Sumner. 40 

Kansas and South Carolina Compared Sumner. « 42 

An Appeal for Kansas. Sumner. 43 

Massachusetts and Her Children Sumner. 45 

The Election of a Republican President a Reason for Disunion . . . Moore. 47 

Let Us alone Tappan. 49 

The Limitation of Slavery Resisted Singleton. 49 

A Western Confederacy Vallandigham. 50 

Threats of Disunion Disregarded Harlan. 52 

The Yankee Twang Gorwin. 53 



X CONTENTS. 

Pago 
Effects of the Doctrine of Non-intervention in the Territories. . . Corwin. 55 

Duty of the Future . . Corwin. 56 

Ubiquity of the Yankee Corwin. 57 

Man's Natural Right to the Soil Grow. 58 

Free Homes for Free Men ....'. Grow. 59 

The Homestead the Source of National Greatness Grow. 61 

John Brown's " Invasion." Davis. 62 

Polygamy in Utah Nelson. 64 

Legislative Censure Repelled Davis. 65 

Right of Free Discussion Lovejoy. 68 

John Brown , Lovejoy. 69 

Slavery and the Constitution Lovejoy. 71 

The " Helper" Book Lovejoy. 72 

Slavery Must Die. ..„. Lovejoy. 74 

Rise and Progress of ¥ra. Lloyd Garrison Sedgwick. 76 

Northern Sentiments on the Fugitive Slave Law Sedgwick. 77 

The North, Not the South, asks Legislative Aid Toombs. 80 

Dred Scott Decision Wade. 81 

Response to Threats Eliot. 83 

Demands of the Pro-Slavery Party Lincoln. 84 

A Patent Gospel .Lovejoy. 85 

The Peaceful Remedy .Kendall. 87 

Tribute to the Supreme Court .Johnson. 88 

The Price of Peace ■ WigfaU. 89 

The Cordon of Free States Baker. 91 

A Free Press Baker. 92 

The Garrison of Sumter . . . Jeff. Davis. 93 

The Causes of Separation Jeff. Davis. 94 

The Attitude of President Lincoln Johnson. 96 

The Prospect of Adjustment Johnson. 98 

Perpetuity of the Union Johnson. 99 

The Alarum ; Morris. 101 

Against Altering the Constitution Lovejoy. 102 

Plea for the Union Seward. 104 

Compromise Untimely Edgerton. 106 

Compromise Repudiated Edgerton. 107 

Enforcing the Laws Pendleton. 109 

The Doctrine of Secession Absurd Douglas. 110 

"War Deprecated Douglas. 112 

Appeal for the Constitution Bingham. 113 

Maryland for the Union Harris. 114 

The Flag Insulted Lovejoy. 115 

Mutual Antipathy of the North and South. Etheridge. 116 

The Secession of Florida Etheridge. 117 

Tennessee not to be Driven into Secession Nelson. 1 1 9 

The South Warned against Military Despotism Nelson. 120 



C ONTENTS. XI 

Page 

Why Destroy this Government? Nelson. 121 

Vindication of Rebellion ; Benjamin. 123 

Confidence in the Future Humphrey. 125 

The Supreme Court not Paramount Humphrey. 126 

Reconstruction' Impossible Humphrey. 128 

The Corner-Stone Stephens. 129 

Unnecessary Excitement Caused by Irresponsible Men Segar. 131 

Secession no True Virginia Doctrine Segar. 132 

Complaints of the South Causeless. Segar. 134 

Consequences of Secession Segar. 135 

Effect of Disunion on Slavery Segar. 13*7 

Gains of Disunion Segar. 138 

The Time for Actions — Not Questions Dickinson. 139 

What is our Country ? £~~ Baker. 141 

A Call to Arms - Baker. 142 

The Insult to the Elag Baker. 143 

Address to the Graduating Class at Columbia College King. 145 

Separation as a Means of Peace Everett. 146 

Secession Establishing a Foreign Power Everett. 148 

The Great Issue Everett. 150 

The Ship of State Lunf. 150 

Tribute to the People of Kansas Conway. 152 

Nature of the Union .Drake. 153 

Insincerity of Secessionists Drake. 154 

National and State Allegiance Drake. 156 

The Right of Revolution Drake. 158 

Public Opinion the Arbiter of Grievances Drake. 159 

False Pretences for Secession Drake. 160 

The Causes of Secession Drake. 162 

The Duty of Defending the Union Drake. 163 

Martial Law and General Jackson Johnson. 165 

An Appeal for East Tennessee Johnson. 166 

Past and Present Dickinson. 16*7 

Secession Illustrated Dickinson. 168 

A Lesson from Mexico Dickinson. 170 

The Civil War Dickinson. Ill 

A Word to the Seceders Dickinson. Ill 

The Way of Peace Dickinson. 173 

An Appeal for the Union Dickinson. 1 74 

The Means of Resistance Stephens. 175 

Principles of Secession Identical with those of '76 Stephens. 176 

The True Cause of the Rebellion Holt. 177 

A Mirror for Traitors Holt. 179 

The Fruits of Secession Holt. 180 

Southern Independence Holt. 180 

Secession and Submission Compared Holt. 182 



XU CONTENTS. 

Page 

Neutrality of Kentucky Holt. 183 

An Appeal to Kentuckians. Holt. 185 

Constitutional Guarantee of a Republican Government to every 

State Doolittle. . 181 

Making War on Rebels Constitutional , Doolittle. 188 

Coercion Unconstitutional Breckinridge. 189« 

The Right of Free Speech Breckinridge. 190 

Evil Predictions Baker. 191 

Subjugation of the South Baker. 193 

Men and Money Baker. 194 

The Peace Men King. 196 

The True Peace Party King. 198 

Personal Responsibility of the Soldier Holt. 200 

Rural Volunteers Holt. 201 

Duty of the Invading Army Holt. 202 

The Benefit of Reverses Holt. 203 

The Problem for the United States Boardman. 205 

The Constitution Equal to the Crisis Davis. 206 

The Danger of Exasperating the Rebels Sargent. 207 

Abolition and Anti-Slavery Garrison. 208 

"Who are Responsible ? Garrison. 210 

The South must be Annihilated Phillips. 212 

Effect of the War on the National Courage Raymond. 214 

The Power of Heroic Example Storrs. 217 

The King of Dahomey and Jefferson Davis Fay. 219 

Our Territory a Trust .Beecher. 221 

The Principles Involved in the War Beecher. 222 

England against War .Beecher. 224 

The Measures of the War Beecher. 225 

The Honored Dead Beecher. 226 

Conduct of the Colored People Beecher. 228 

Strength of the American Government Bright. 230 

Cause of the Union Sure to Succeed Cobden. 231 

Condition of the English Peasantry : Cobden. 233 

The War for Free Labor in America Cobden. 235 

Congressional Sins of Omission and Commission N. T. Times. 236 

The Demand Thayer. 238 

How to Restore the Union Cox. 239 

Thorough Work the Best Thompson. 241 

Heroes and Martyrs Chapin. 243 

The Dress Reform Hitchcock. 244 

Eulogy on Owen Lovejoy Bryant. 246 



CONTENTS. Xm 



II.— MISCELLANEOUS EXTKACTS. 

Page 

Marcellus to the Roman Mob r Shakespeare. 248 

The Curse of Regulus Anon. 248 

Metamora to his Warriors Anon. 250 

Despair Hugo. 252 

In the Vale of Chamouni Coleridge. 254 

Eulogy on Jean Paul Boerne. 255 

Death of President Taylor Humphrey. 257 

The Grave Irving. 258 

The Seven Ages. Shakespeare. 259 

The Common Lot Montgomery. 260 

Satan to his Legions . Milton. 260 

Treasures of the Deep Hemans. 261 

Easter Morning Beecher. 261 

The French Revolution Hells. 264 

The Patience of Poland Kossuth. 266 

Rienzi to the Romans Bulwer. 267 

King Harold to his Army Bulwer. 268 

Consolations of Religion Finlayson. 269 

Man an Unprofitable Servant Melville. 270 

Preaching Christ in the Metropolis ,. . Storrs. 271 

The Teacher the Hope of America Hells. 272 

The Teacher's Old Age Eetts. 274 

American Literature Webster. 276 

Repudiation Webster. 277 

Coercion Calhoun. 278 

Children of Deceased Officers Livingston. 219 

New Englanders in New Orleans Prentiss. 279 

Free Discussion Burges. 280 

National Injustice „ Parker. 282 

Farewell to Departing Volunteers. Hall. 284 

The Militia G-eneral Corwin. 285 

On Reducing the Army Pulteney. 286 

Last Words Lovejoy. 287 

The Mobbing and Murder of Lovejoy Anon. 290 

Death of O'Connell Seward. -293 

Defence of Smith O'Brien Whiteside. 294 

Vindication from Treason Meagher. 295 

The Miseries of War Chalmers. 297 

False Coloring Lent to War Chalmers. 298 

Sectarian Legislation Sheil. 299 

Post Office Espionage Sheil. 301 

The Vote by Ballot Sheil. 303 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Page 

Income Tax in Ireland Sheil. 304 

Irish Insurrection Sheil. 306 

Amending the Law Brougham. 307 



III.— POETICAL EXTRACTS. 

Scott and the Veteran Taylor. 309 

Dulce pro Patria Mori Percival. 310 

Very Dark Z. R. 311 

Black Horse Guard Rand. 313 

.Not Yet Bryant 314 

The Koman Twins Duganne. 315 

The Watchers Whittier. 316 

I Give my Soldier Boy a Blade Maginn. 318 

Lander Anon. 319 

Union Song of the Celt Robinson. 320 

The Boy of the Cumberland R. W. R. 321 

Death the Peacemaker. : Flagg. 322 

No Slave beneath the Plag Taylor. 324 

Civil War Once a Week. 325 

The Four Eras Rogers. 326 

Columbia Dyers. 321 

Thirty-Four Smith. 328 

The Battle of Port Royal McClellan. 330 

Never Anon. 331 

The Execution .Barham. 332 

The Charge at Waterloo Scott. 333 

The Lord of Butrago Lockhart. 335 

Herminius and Mamilius Macauley. 336 

Barbara Frietchie Whittier. 336 

The Doom of MacGregor Anon. 339 

The Men of Marblehead R. W. R. 341 

Stars in my Country's Sky L. H. S. 342 

To the Men of the North and West Stoddard. 343 

The Powder-Boy of the Cayuga R. W. R. 343 

The Well of Bethlehem R. W. R. 344 

The Battle Schiller. 347 

The Battle of Bunker Hill Cozzens. 348 

The Knight's Toast Anon. 351 

The Lion's Bride Chamisso. 352 

The Felon Lewis. 354 



CONTENTS. XV 

Page 

The Grift of Tritemius Anon. 355 

They're Dear Fish to Me Anon. 356 

The Grasp of the Dead L. E. L. 357 

The Slave's Petition. Norton. 353 

Crescentius . :L. E. L. 360 

Harmosan Anon. 3R1 

"War Song of the Greeks Barry Cornwall. 362 

The Fall of D'Assas Remans. 363 

The Dying Soldier Anon. 364 

Ode for Independence Anon. 365 

Boadicea Cowper. 365 

The Dying Archer „ Waterston. 367 

The World for Sale ffoyt. 363 

The Vagabonds Troworidge. 369 

The Cumberland Longfellow. 372 

The Boy of Eatisbon Browning. 373 

The Patriot's Elysium Montgomery. 374 \^ 

Clear the Way Mackay. 375 

The Three Beats Patten. 376 

The Great Bell Roland Tilton. 377 

The Rising Cutler. 379 

The Republic Bourne. 381 

The Gonfalon of Yenice R. W. R. 383 

The American Struggle. Sewell. 385 

The Gift of Green Corn Longfellow. 386 

The Polish Boy Stephens. 389 

Dissolve the Union Anon. 392 

Fireman's Prize Address Hill. 393 

The Fireman ' Conrad. 395 

War Better than False Peace Browning. 397 

The Task of the Culprit Fay Drake. 398 

The Warder's Revenge Mmmo. 401 

The Bishop and the Rats Souihey. 405 

War Montgomery. 407 

The Soldier's Funeral .L. E. L. 408 

Mary Queen of Scots , Bell 409 

The Gray Forest Eagle .Street. 411 

The Main Truck Morris. 41 3 

The Launching of the Ship Longfellow. 414 

King Solomon Lyiton. 416 

St. Valentine McDonough. 418 

The Frenchman and the Flea Powder Anon. 419 

Der Zhoemaker's Poy Anon. 420 

The Confession Anon. 421 

Tbe Pied Piper of Hamelin Browning. 421 

Pudding and Milk Barlow. 425 



XVI CONTENTS. 

Page 

The Night after Christmas Anon. 426 

Let Us alone Anon. 42? 

Swell's Soliloquy ■. Anon. 428 

Dermot O'Dowd Lover. 429 

A Rhymed Lesson Holmes. 430 

The Frenchman and the Pigs Anon. 432 

The Vulture Brough. 433 

The Jackdaw of Rheims JSarham. 436 

Bachelor's Hall Anon. 439 

A Tale of Woe Dwighl 439 

The Features New Monthly Mag. 440 

Perils of the Pave. Phil. Eve. Bull. 442 

The New Ballad of Lord Lovell Phil. Eve. Bull. 4M 

The Lurid Leper Anon. 445 

Shamus O'Brien Lover. 446 

French and English Rood. 44? 

The Indian Chieftain P. R. P. 450 



/ 

IY.-DIALOGUES, OEIGLYAL AED SELECTED. 

Brutu3 452 

The Roman Father 458 

Before and after the Battle of Sheep's Run 464 

Hush ! or the Grand Master of the K. G. C 473 

Damon and Pythias 489 

Fast Train 508 



THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE PROSPECTS OF THE REPUBLIC. 

We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last, 
experiment of self-government by the people. We have be- 
gun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. 
We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been 
checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions 
have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the 
Old World. Such as we are, we have been from the begin- 
ning, — simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-govern- 
ment, and to self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us 
and any formidable foe. Within our" own territory, stretch- 
ing through many degrees of latitude and longitude, we 
have the choice of many products, and many means of inde- 
pendence. The Government is mild. The Press is free. 
Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may reach, every 
home. What fairer prospect of success could be presented ? 
What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end ? 
What more is necessary than for the people to preserve 
what they have themselves created? Already has the age 
caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended 
the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has 
infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the 
sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It 
has touched the philosophy of Germany and the North ; 
and, moving onward to the South, has opened to Greece the 
lessons of their better days. Can it be that America, under 
such circumstances, can betray herself? Can it be that she 
is to be added to the catalogue of Republics, the inscription 
on whose ruins is : They were, but they are not ? Forbid 
it, my countrymen! Forbid it, Heaven! — Judge Story. 



18 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
* 

We are summoned to new energy and zeal by the high 
nature of the experiment we are appointed in Providence to 
make, and the grandeur of the theatre on which it is to be 
performed. At a moment of deep and general agitation in 
the Old World, it pleased Heaven to open this last refuge of 
humanity. The attempt has begun, and is going on, far 
from foreign corruption, on the broadest scale, and under the 
most benignant prospects ; and it certainly rests with us to 
solve the great problem in human society, — to settle, and 
that forever, the momentous question, — whether mankind 
can be trusted with a purely popular system of Government. 

One might almost think, without extravagance, that the 
departed wise and good, of all places and times, are looking 
down from their happy seats to witness what shall now be 
done by us ; that they who lavished their treasures, and their 
blood, of old, — who spake and wrote, who labored, fought 
and perished, in the one great cause of Freedom and Truth, 
— are now hanging, from their orbs on high, over the last 
solemn experiment of humanity. As I have wandered over 
the spots once the scene of their labors, and mused among 
the prostrate columns of their senate-houses and forums, I 
have seemed almost to hear a voice from the tombs of de- 
parted ages, from the sepulchres of the nations which died 
before the sight. They exhort us, they adjure us, to be 
faithful to our trust. They implore us, by the long trials of 
struggling humanity ; by the blessed memory of the depart- 
ed ; by the dear faith which has been plighted by pure hands 
to the holy cause of truth and man ; by the awful secrets of 
the prison-house, where the sons of freedom have been im- 
mured ; by the noble heads which have been brought to the 
block ; by the wrecks of time, by the eloquent ruins of na- 
tions,- — they conjure us not to quench the light which is 
rising on the world. Greece cries to us by the convulsed 
lips of her poisoned, dying Demosthenes ; and Rome pleads 
with us in the mute persuasion of her mangled Tully. 

Hon. JEdioard Everett. 



THREATS OF SLAVEHOLDERS DEFIED. 

Language of this sort has no effect upon me. My pur- 
pose is fixed. It is interwoven with my existence. Its du- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 19 

rability is limited with my life. It is a great and glorious 
cause — setting bounds to slavery the most cruel and debasing 
the world has ever witnessed. It is the cause of the free- 
dom of man ! • • 

If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be so ! 
If civil war, which gentlemen so much threaten, must come, 
"I can only say, let it come ! My hold on life is probably as 
frail as that of any man who now hears me ; but, while that 
hold lasts, it shall be devoted to the freedom of man. If 
blood is necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assist- 
ed to kindle, while I regret the necessity, I shall not hesitate 
to contribute my own. The violence which gentlemen have 
resorted to on this subject will not move my purpose, nor 
drive me from my ground. I have the fortune and honor to 
stand here as the representative of freemen who possess in- 
telligence to know their rights, and who have the spirit to 
maintain them. Whatever might be my own private senti- 
ments on this subject, standing here as the representative of 
others, no choice is left me. I know the will of my constitu- 
ents, and, regardless of consequences, I will avow it. As 
their representative, I will proclaim their hatred to slavery 
in every shape. As their representative, here will I hold my 
stand, till this floor, with the national Constitution which, 
supports it, shall sink beneath me. If I am doomed to fall, 
I shall, at least, have the painful consolation to fall as a frag- 
ment of the ruins of my country. — Tallmadge^ 1819. 



SLAVERY EXTENSION TO BE RESISTED. 

Has it, indeed, come to this, that in the Congress of the 
United States, slavery has become a subject of so much del- 
icacy, of so much danger, of so much feeling, that it cannot 
safely be discussed ? Are members who venture to express 
their sentiments on this subject to be accused of talking to 
the galleries, with intent to excite a servile insurrection, and 
to be threatened with the fate of Arbuthnot and Ambrister? 
Are we to be told of the dissolution of the Union, of civil 
war, and of seas of blood ? And yet, with such awful 
threatenings, do gentlemen, in the same breath, insist on the 
extension of this evil and scourge — an evil fraught with dire 
calamities to us as individuals, and to the nation ; threaten- 
ing in its progress to overthrow, along with the liberties of 
the country, all our notions of religion and morals. You 
behold Southern gentlemen contributing to teach the doc- 



20 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

trines of Christianity in every part of the globe. Turn over 
the page, and you behold them legislating to secure the igno- 
rance and stupidity of their own slaves ! While we hear of 
a liberality which civilizes the lavages of all countries, and 
carries the Gospel alike to the Hottentot and the Hindoo, it 
has been reserved for the republican State of Georgia, not 
content with the care of overseers, to legislate to secure the 
oppression and ignorance of her slaves. The man who 
teaches a negro to- read is liable to a criminal prosecution ! 
The dark, benighted beings of all creation profit by our libe- 
rality — save those on our own plantations. Where is the 
missionary of hardihood enough to venture to teach the 
slaves of Georgia? Here is the stain, the stigma which 
fastens on the character of our country, and which, in the 
appropriate language of the gentleman from Georgia, not all 
the waters of the ocean, only seas of blood, can wash out I 

If it is not safe now to discuss slavery on this floor, if it 
cannot now come before us as a proper subject for general 
legislation, what will be the result when it is spread through 
your widely extended domain? Its present threatening 
aspect, and the violence of its supporters, go far from in- 
ducing me to yield to its progress, prompt me to resist its 
march. Now is the time! The extension of the evil must 
be now prevented, or the opportunity will be lost forever ! 

Tallmadge, 1819. 



PEEE AND SLAVE TEEEITOEY CONTEASTED. 

Look down the long vista of futurity. See your empire, 
in extent unequalled, in advantageous situation without a 
parallel, occupying all the valuable part of our continent. 
Behold this extended empire inhabited by the hardy sons of 
America, freemen knowing their rights, and inheriting the 
will to maintain them; owners of the soil on which they 
live, and interested in the institutions which they labor to 
uphold ; with two oceans laving your shores and tributary to 
your purposes, bearing on their bosoms the commerce of 
your people — compared to yours, the governments of Europe 
dwindle into insignificance, and the world has no parallel. 
But reverse the scene. People this fair domain with the 
slaves of your planters. Spread slavery, that bane of man, 
that abomination of heaven, over your extended empire! 
You prepare its dissolution; you turn its accumulated 
strength into positive weakness ; you cherish a cancer in 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 21 

your breast; you put a viper in your bosom; you place a 
vulture on yonr heart — nay, you whet the dagger, and thrust 
it into the hands of a portion of your population, stimulated 
to use it by every impulse, human and divine. The envious 
contrast between your happiness and their misery, between 
your liberty and their slavery, must constantly prompt them 
to accomplish your destruction. ' Your enemies will learn the 
source and the cause of your weakness. As often as external 
dangers shall threaten, or internal commotions await you, 
you will then realize that, by your own procurement, you 
have placed amid your families, and in the bosom of your 
country, a population at once the greatest cause of individual 
danger and of national weakness. With this defect, your 
government must crumble to pieces, and your people become 
the scoff of the world. — Tallmadge, 1819, 



THE TEUE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY. 

The true ground, on which to plead for the self-govern- 
ment of the people, is not the inherent virtue of man. Gen- 
uine democracy regards him as a sinner, and, it is on this 
very fact, that all men are alike guilty in the sight of heaven, 
that the claim of equality rests. Frederic William, of Prus- 
sia, once reproving a chaplain for some piece of servility to 
himself, in divine service, said to him, "I'd have you to 
know, sir, that in the sight of God, I am as great a rascal as 
yourself.'''' Let selfish conservatism, that draws an inference 
to its own emolument from the exceeding imperfection of 
humanity, lay this to heart. If the people are turbulent and 
vicious, the king, on the basis of this doctrine, is only one of 
them, and they are all rabble in the sight of God together. 
Or, if the people's outer unadornment be offensive to the 
sense polite, let it be remembered that when they are un- 
clothed of this plebeian mortality, then the king shall lay 
aside his purple too, and they shall all be sans culottes to- 
gether. But this is not the truth, on which democracy 
founds its cheerful creed. Not on the ground that humanity 
is fallen, but that it is redeemed ; and that provision is made 
in the economy of redemption for its perfect disenthralment, 
not only from the bondage of human authority, but from the 
tyranny of self. The freeman repudiates allegiance to any 
government but that which is delegated from himself, not 
because he holds that man should be uncontrolled, but be- 
cause he has a king already, and one who allows no other 



22 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

vicegerent on earth, than His Spirit in the breast of man, 
administering a government over his passions and propensi- 
ties, according to the sacred statutes of Christianity. The 
republican, then, is not without his Prince; and loyalty to 
that Prince forbids that any ruler, either in the civil or 
spiritual realm, should be permitted to usurp His place. 
" Neither be ye called masters, for one is your Master, even 
Christ, and all ye are brethren." Is there not in the spirit 
of this and similar passages, some warrant for our doctrine ? 
and will it be deemed irreverent, then, to say that Jesus was 
the great apostle of democracy ? He was eminently a man 
of the people. From the people he sprang — to the people, 
the "common people," he first brought his gift of immortali- 
ty, and they " heard him gladly." It was the canse of the 
people — for " he came not to call the righteous" — that he 
carried on his loving heart to Calvary. And his last com- 
mand to his disciples was to announce the conditions of the 
gospel and make a proffer of its blessings "to every crea- 
ture" without distinction of class or clime. — M. M. JR., 1847. 



CHRISTIANITY AM) DEMOCRACY IDENTICAL IS PURPOSE. 

Heee, then, my friends, behold the creed of freedom, and 
its great High Priest. Ought not he who would be a true 
disciple of the democratic faith, to worship also at the altar 
of Christianity ? Tell me where, in all the schools of phi- 
losophy, you may attain that generous self-sacrificing devo- 
tion, which we have found so essential to the mission of the 
American scholar, the American citizen, — where, but in that 
school of morals, which declares, as its fundamental law and 
essential spirit, " None of us liveth to himself." Animated 
by such a principle, derived, on bended knee, from the great 
Fountain of all holy impulse, let us go forth, my brethren, to 
bear the ark of freedom through the world. Be it ours, not 
merely to abolish the disheartening barriers of social caste, 
to dismiss the hireling soldier, to spike the cannon, to bury 
the bayonet, to burn the gibbet, to strike the coffle from the 
slave, but to disenthrall the mind from ignorance and vice 
and raise the free soul's longing to the skies. In this glori- 
ous enterprise are harmonized our religious and our civic 
duties, and all the worthy purposes -of life. It allies us to 
all the glorious family of the truly free, in earth and heaven. 
Lo, they wait for us — they watch us, — that mighty cloud of 
witnesses ! They crowd the circumambient sky ! Wash- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 23 

iDgton, and the Fathers of "76 — Luther, and the heroes of 
the Reformation— -Paul, and the first martyrs in the cause! 
Oh, glorious brotherhood of liberty ! They bend from their 
starry thrones ! They beckon us ! Aye, and God is with 
us ! He will set his King upon his holy hill of Zion. To 
this do all the revolutions of the nations tend. " Thus saith 
the Lord God. Remove the diadem, and take off the 
crown ; this shall not be the same : exalt him that is low, and 
abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn 
it, until he come whose right it is : and I will give it him." 
He unrolls the blazing scroll of prophecy before us — and this 
is its golden inscription : 

" For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will 
bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron ; 
i will also make thy officers peace and thy exactors 
righteousness. 

Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wast- 
ing NOR DESTRUCTION WITHIN THY BORDERS, BUT THOU 

shalt call thy walls salvation, and thy gates praise. 

Thy people shall be all righteous; they shall in- 
herit THE LAND FOREVER, THE BRANCH OF MY PLANTING, 
THE WORK OF MY HANDS, THAT I MAY BE GLORIFIED. 

A LITTLE ONE SHALL BECOME A THOUSAND AND A SMALL 
ONE A STRONG NATION. I THE LORD WILL HASTEN TT IN HIS 
TIME." 

Happy association ! Christ and the genius of Liberty, — 
patriotism and evangelic zeal— the cause of country, and the 
cause of universal man. The cause is heaven-born ; the glory 
of the Lord has already arisen upon it ; and all the blessed 
influences of the universe are pledged to its success. With 
this triumphant thought we close. 

" Tet may the moral still remain impressed, 

To warm the patriot, or the pious breast. 

Where'er aggression marches, may the brave 

Rush unappalled, their father-land to save ! 

Where sounds of glad salvation are gone out 

Unto all lands, as with an angel's shout, 

May holy zeal its energies employ ! 

***** 
" Proceed auspicious and eventful day ! 

Banner of Christ thy finiple folds display ! 

Let Atlas shout with Andes, and proclaim 

To earth, and sea, and skies, a Sayiour's name, 

Till angel voices in the sound shall blend, 

And one hosanna from all worlds ascend !" 

JR. JR. JR., 1847. 



24 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

V 

POWER OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT OVER SLAVERY. 

Sir, in my humble judgment, the institution of slavery 
presents two questions totally distinct, and resting on en- 
tirely different grounds — slavery within the States, and 
slavery without the States. The General Government has 
no power, under the Constitution of the United States, to 
touch slavery within the States, except in the three specified 
particulars in that instrument ; to adjust the subject of 
representation; to impose taxes when a system of direct 
taxation is made ; and to perform the duty of surrendering, 
or causing to be delivered up, fugitive slaves, that may es- 
cape from service which they may owe in. slave States, and 
take refuge in free States. And sir, I am ready to say that 
if Congress were to attack, within the States, the institution 
of Slavery, for the purpose of the overthrow or extinction of 
slavery, then, Mr. President, my voice would be for war; 
then w r ould be made a case which would justify in the sight 
of God, and in the presence of the nations of the earth, re- 
sistance on the part of the slave States to such an unconsti- 
tutional and usurped attempt as would be made on the sup- 
position which I have stated. 

Then we should be acting in defence of our rights, our 
domicils, our property, our safety, our lives; and then, I 
think, would be furnished a case in which the slaveholding 
States would be justified by all considerations which pertain 
to the happiness and security of man, to employ every instru- 
ment which God or nature had placed in their hands to re- 
sist such an attempt on the part of the free States. And 
then, if unfortunately civil war should break out, and we 
should present to the nations of the earth the spectacle of 
one portion of this Union endeavoring to subvert an institu- 
tion in violation of the Constitution and the most sacred 
obligations which can bind men ; we- should present the 
spectacle in which we should have the sympathies, the good 
wishes, and the desire for our success of all men who love 
justice and truth. Far different, I fear, would be our case — 
if unhappily we should be plunged into civil war — if the two 
parts of this country should be placed in a position hostile 
toward each other, in order to carry slavery into the new 
territories acquired from Mexico. 

Mr. President, we "have heard, all of us have read of the 
efforts of France to propagate — what, on the continent of 
Europe? Not slavery, sir ; not slavery, but the rights of 
man ; and we know the fate of her efforts in a work of that 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 25 

kind. But if the two portions of this Confederacy should 
unhappily be involved in civil war, in which the efforts on 
the one side would be to restrain the introduction of slavery 
into new territories, and on the other side to force its intro- 
duction there, what a spectacle should we present to the con- 
templation of astonished mankind ! An effort not to propa- 
gate right, but I must say an effort to propagate wrong in 
the territories. It would be a war in which we should have 
no sympathy, no good wishes, and in which all . mankind 
would be against us, and in which our own history, itself, 
would be against us ; for, from the commencement of the 
revolution down to the present time, we have constantly re- 
proached our British ancestors for the introduction of slavery 
into this country. 

I think then, there is this important distinction between 
slavery outside of the States and slavery inside of the States ; 
that all outside is debatable, and upon which men may 
honestly and fairly differ, but which, decided however it may 
be, furnishes, in my judgment, no just occasion for breaking 
up this happy and glorious Union. 

Hon. Henry Clay, 1850. 



DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 

Mr. President, I have said, what I solemnly believe, that 
dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inevitable ; 
that they are convertible terms ; and such a war as it would 
be, following a dissolution of the Union ! Sir, we may search 
the pages of history, and none so ferocious, so bloody, so 
implacable, so exterminating — not even the wars of Greece, 
including those of the Commoners of England and the revo- 
lutions of France — none, none of them all would rage with 
such violence, or be characterized with such bloodshed and 
enormities as would the war which must succeed, if that 
event ever happens, the dissolution of the Union. And what 
would be its termination ? Standing armies, and navies, to 
an extent stretching the revenues of each portion of the dis- 
severed members, would take place. An exterminating war 
would follow — not, sir, a war of two or three years duration, 
but a war of interminable duration — and exterminating wars 
would ensue, until, after the struggles and exhaustion of 
both parties, some Philip or Alexander, some Ca3sar or Na- 
poleon, would arise and cut the Gordian knot, and solve the 

2 



26 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

problem of the capacity of man for self-government and 
crush the liberties of both the severed portions of this com- 
mon empire. Can you doubt it ? 

Look at all history — consult her pages, ancient and mod- 
ern — look at human nature; look at the contest in which you 
would be engaged in the supposition of war following upon 
the dissolution of the Union, such as I have suggested ; and 
I ask you if it is possible for you to doubt that the final dis- 
position of the whole would be some despot treading down 
the liberties of the people — the final result would be the ex- 
tinction of this last and glorious light which is leading all 
mankind, who are gazing upon it, in the hope and anxious 
expectation that the liberty which prevails here will sooner 
or later be diffused throughout the whole of the civilized 
world. Sir, can you lightly contemplate these consequences ? 
Can you yield yourself to the tyranny of passion, amid dan- 
gers which I have depicted, in colors far too tame, of what 
the result would be if that direful event to which I have re- 
ferred should ever occur ? Sir, I implore gentlemen, I ad- 
jure them, whether from the South or the North, by all 
that they hold dear in this world — by all their love of 
liberty — by all their veneration for their ancestors — by all 
their regard for posterity — by all their gratitude to Him who 
has bestowed on them such unnumbered and countless bless- 
ings — by all the duties which they owe to mankind — and by 
all the duties which they owe to themselves, to pause, 
solemnly to pause at the edge of the precipice, before the 
fearful and dangerous leap is taken into the yawning abyss 
below, from which none, who ever take it shall return in 
safety. 

Finally, Mr. President, and in conclusion, I implore, as the 
best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me, upon earth, 
that if the direful event of the dissolution of this Union is to 
happen, I should not survive to behold the sad and heart- 
rending spectacle.— .ZZo^. Henry Clay, 1850. 



THE SUPEEMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

The arrangement of God which makes a man's Conscience 
his guide to action, is beneficent every way. — It is beneficent 
for the Individual. The results will be seen in the end, — as 
with the Puritans in this country, as with the Huguenots in 
France, as with the persecuted band in the Waldensian val- 
leys, — in a purer piety ; in a nobler self-devotion ; in a 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 27 

grander and more powerful grasp of the principles of duty ; 
in a more exalted communion with God in his holiness ; in 
a higher disregard of the blandishments of time ; in a 
mightier unfolding of all spiritual force; in a deeper impres- 
sion on the history of the world. It is beneficent for the 
state, as for the persons who compose it, that conscience 
thus decide. " The State." What is it ? It is not lands, 
or ports, or capitals. It is the Men, who form and guide it. 
Where these are elevated, the state is flourishing. Let facts 
then testify of the tendencies of this system. Where the 
decree of an infallible church has been received as decisive 
in the questions of right — much more, where the doctrine 
has obtained of a passive and unquestioning obedience to the 
state — what has been the issue? I put it to you, my 
friends. In Italy; — in Russia; — under the iron system of 
the despots of France ; — has liberty advanced ? has intelli- 
gence been diffused ? has morality grown purer ? has religion 
gained power? has right been done? has the state been 
ennobled ? has even a just stability of government been se- 
cured and established? Nay, verily! But in all these the 
reverse ! Wherever the doctrine has stepped, it has blighted. 
Wherever it has had sway, it has turned men into machines. 
The final revolution has been the more tremendous for its 
oppressions. The nation, has degenerated to the level of its 
condition, or else the furious rush of a people that ha<I 
borne till endurance became impossible has swept before it 
the palace and the throne. — And on the other hand take any 
man, take any people, in the development of the system 
which nurtures and educates conscience, as the guide to 
man's duty, as the interpreter of God's law for him, as the 
authority he must bow to, whatever man decrees, and Liberty 
there advances. The state grows in power, as its citizens 
are enlightened. It becomes settled and established, on the 
basis of equity. Follow it in its career ; and its progress 
shall be traced in beneficence and peace. From first to last 
its orbit shall be an orbit that brightens with the glow of 
knowledge and of heroism ; and that closes in the splendor 
of a still culminating glory. — R. 8. Stows, Jh, 1850. 



ADMISSION OF CALIFOBNIA. 

Four years ago, California, a Mexican province, scarcely 
inhabited, and quite unexplored, was unknown even to our 



28 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

usually immoderate desires, except by a harbor, capacious 
and tranquil, which only statesmen then foresaw would be 
useful in the oriental commerce of a far distant, iffiot merely 
chimerical, future. 

A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of 
our own, and we were celebrating with unanimity and en- 
thusiasm its acquisition, with its newly-discovered but yet 
untold and untouched mineral wealth, as the most auspicious 
of many and unparalleled achievements. 

To-day, California is a State, more populous than the least 
and richer than several of the greatest of our thirty States. 
This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking 
admission into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolu- 
tion of the Union itself. 

No wonder if we are perplexed with ever-changing em- 
barrassments ! No wonder if we are appalled by ever-in- 
creasing responsibilities ! No wonder if we are bewildered 
by the ever augmenting magnitude and rapidity of national 
vicissitudes! 

Shall California be received? For myself, upon my 
individual judgment and conscience, I answer, Yes. For 
myself, as an instructed representative of one of the States, 
of that one even of the States which is soonest and longest 
to be pressed in commercial and political rivalry by the new 
commonwealth, I answer, Yes. Let California come in. 
Every new State, whether she come from the East or from 
the West, every new State, coming from whatever part of 
the continent she may, is always welcome. But California, 
that comes from the clime where' the west dies away into the 
rising east; California, which bounds at once the empire and 
the continent ; California, the youthful queen of the Pacific, 
in her robes of freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold — is 
doubly welcome. — Son. William S. Seward, 1850. 



REVOLUTION IN THE INTEREST OF SLAVERY. 

There are some who would alarm us with the terrors of 
revolution in behalf of the interests of slavery. Sir, in any 
condition of society there can be no revolution without a 
cause, an adequate cause. Whatf cause exists here? We 
are admitting a new State; but there is nothing new in that; 
we have already admitted -seventeen before. But it is said 
that the slave States are in danger of losing political power 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 29. 

by the admission of the new State.* Well, sir, is there any- 
thing new in that? The slave States have always been 
losing political power, and they always will be while they 
have any to lose. At first, twelve of the thirteen States were 
slave States ; now only fifteen out of the thirty are slave States. 
Moreover, the change is constitutionally made, and the Gov- 
ernment was constructed so as to permit changes of the bal- 
ance of power, in obedience to the changes of the forces of 
the body politic. Danton used to say, " It's all well while 
the people cry Danton and Robespierre ; but wo for me if 
ever the people learn to say Robespierre and Danton !" 
That is all of it, sir. The people have been accustomed to 
say the South and the North ; they are only beginning now 
to say the North and the South. 

There is not now, and there is not likely to occur, any ad- 
equate cause for revolution in regard to slavery. But you 
reply that, nevertheless, you must have guaranties ; and the 
first one is for the surrender of fugitives from labor. That 
guaranty you cannot have, as I have already shown, because 
you cannot roll back the tide of" social progress. You must 
be content with what you have. If you wage war against 
us* you can, at most, only conquer us, and then all you can 
get will be a treaty, and that you have already. 

But you insist on a guaranty against the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia, or war. Well, when 
you shall have declared war against us, what shall hinder us 
from immediately decreeing that slavery shall cease within 
the national capital ? 

You say that you will not submit to the exclusion of slaves 
from the new Territories. What will you gain by resist- 
ance? Liberty follows the sword, although her sway is one 
of peace and beneficence. Can you propagate slavery then 
by the sword ? 

You insist that you cannot submit to the freedom with 
which slavery is discussed in the free States. Will war — a 
war for slavery — arrest or even moderate that discussion ? 
No, sir ; that discussion will not cease ; war would only in- 
flame it to a greater height. It is a part of the eternal con- 
flict between truth and error — between mind and physical 
force— the conflict of man against the obstacles which oppose 
his way to an ultimate and glorious destiny. It will go on 
until you shall terminate it in the only way in which any 
State or nation* has ever terminated it — by yielding to it- 
yielding in your own time, and in your own manner, indeed, 

* California. 



30 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

but nevertheless yielding to the progress of emancipation. 
You will do this, sooner or later, whatever may be your 
Opinion now; because nations which were prudent and hu-' 
mane, and wise as you are, have done so already. 

Let, then, those who distrust the Union make compro- 
mises to save it. I shall not impeach their wisdom, as I cer- 
tainly cannot their patriotism; but, indulging no such appre- 
hensions myself, I shall vote for the admission of California 
directly, without conditions, without qualifications, and with- 
out compromise. 

For the vindication of that vote I look not to the verdict 
of the passing hour, disturbed as the public mind now is by 
conflicting interests and passions, but to that period, happily 
not far distant, when the vast regions over which we are now 
legislating shall have received their destined inhabitants. 

While looking forward to that day, its countless genera- 
tions seem to me to be rising up and passing in dim and 
shadowy review before us ; and a voice comes forth from 
their serried ranks, saying, " Waste your treasures and your 
armies, if you will ; raze your fortifications to the ground ; 
sink your navies into the sea; transmit to us even a dishon- 
ored name, if you must ; but the soil you hold in trust for 
us — give it to us free. You found it free, and conquered it 
to extend a better and surer freedom over it. Whatever 
choice you have made for yourselves, let us have no partial 
freedom ; let us all be free ; let the reversion of your broad 
domain descend to us unincumbered, and free from the 
calamities and the sorrows of human bondage." 

Hon. 'William H. Seicard, 1850. 



THE SENATE OF SOME AND THE AMERICAN CON&RESS. 

Sir — As once Cineas, the Epirote,* stood among the sen- 
ators of Rome, who, with a word of self-conscious majesty, 
arrested kings in their ambitious march, thus full of admira- 
tion and of reverence, I stand among you, legislators of the 
new capitol, that glorious hall of your people's collective 
majesty. The capitol of old yet stands, but the spirit has 
departed from it, and is come over to yours, purified by the 

* Cineas was the warm friend and minister of Pyrrhus, the famous 
King of Epirus. He was once sent on an embassy to Rome with pro- 
posals for peace from Pyrrhus to the Senate. When he returned, he 
told the king that there was no people like the Remans, — that their 
city was a temple, and their senate an assembly of kings. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 31 

air of liberty. The old stands, a mournful monument of the 
fragility of human things; yours, as a sanctuary of eternal 
right. The old beamed with the red lustre of conquest, now 
darkened by the gloom of oppression ; yours is bright with 
freedom. The old absorbed the world into its own central- 
ized glory ; yours protects your own nation from being ab- 
sorbed, even by itself. The old was awful with unrestricted 
power; yours is glorious by having restricted it. At the 
view of the old, nations trembled ; at the view of yours, 
humanity hopes. 

To the old, misfortune was introduced with fettered hands 
to kneel at triumphant conquerors' feet; to yours, the tri- 
umph of introduction is granted to unfortunate exiles, who 
are invited to the honor of a seat. And, where kings and 
Caesars never will be hailed for their power and wealth, there 
the persecuted chief of a down-trodden nation is welcomed, 
as your great Republic's guest, precisely because he is perse- 
cuted, helpless and poor. In the old, the terrible vce victis ! 
was the rule ; in yours, protection to the oppressed, maledic- 
tion to ambitious oppressors, and consolation to a vanquished 
just cause. And, while from the old a conquered world was 
ruled, you in yours provide for the common federative inter- 
ests of a territory larger than that old conquered world. 
There sat men boasting that their will was sovereign on the 
earth; here sit men whose glory is to acknowledge "the 
laws of nature and nature's God, and to do what their sov- 
ereign, the people, wills." — Louis JTossuth) 1851. 



PEACTICAL WOEKEtfG OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT. 

With every attempt to administer the Slave Act, it con- 
stantly becomes more revolting, particularly in its influence 
on the agents it enlists. Pitch cannot be touched without de- 
filement, and all who lend themselves to this work seem at 
once and unconsciously to lose the better part of man. The 
spirit of the law passes into them, as the devils entered the 
? swine. Upstart commissioners, the mere mushrooms of 
courts, vie and revie with each other. Now by indecent 
speed, now by harshness of manner, now by a denial of evi- 
dence, now by crippling the defence, and now by open gla- 
ring wrong, they make the odious act yet more odious. 
Clemency, grace and justice die in its presence. All this is 
observed by the world. Not a case occurs which does not 
harrow the souls of good men, and bring tears of sympathy 



32 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

to the eyes, also those other tears which " patriots shed o'er 
dying laws." 

Sir, I shall speak frankly. If there be an exception to 
this feeling, it will be found chiefly with a peculiar class. It 
is a sorry fact that the " mercantile interest," in its unpar- 
donable selfishness, twice in English history, frowned upon 
the endeavors to suppress the atrocity of Algerine slavery ; 
that it sought to baffle Wilberforce's great effort for the abo- 
lition of the African slave trade ; and that, by a sordid com- 
promise, at the formation of our Constitution, it exempted 
the same detested, heaven-defying traffic from American 
judgment. And now representatives of this "interest," for- 
getful that commerce is the child of freedom, join in hunting 
the slave. But the great heart of the people recoils from 
this enactment. It palpitates for the fugitive, and rejoices 
in his escape. 

I have said, sir, that this sentiment is just. And is it not ? 
Every escape from slavery necessarily and instinctively 
awakens the regard of all who love freedom. The endeavor, 
though unsuccessful, reveals courage, manhood, character. 
No story is read with more interest than that of our own 
Lafayette, when, aided by a gallant South Carolinian, in defi- 
ance of the despotic ordinances of Austria, kindred to our 
Slave Act, he strove to escape from the bondage of Olinutz. 
Literature pauses with exultation over the struggles of Cer- 
vantes, the great Spaniard, while a slave in Algiers, to regain 
the liberty for which he says, in his immortal work, " we 
ought to risk life itself, slavery being the greatest evil that 
can fall to the lot of man." Science, in all her manifold 
triumphs, throbs with pride and delight that Arago, the astro- 
nomer and philosopher — devoted republican also — was re- 
deemed from barbarous slavery to become one of her greatest 
sons. Religion rejoices serenely, with joy unspeakable, in 
the final escape of Vincent de Paul. Exposed in the public 
square of Tunis to the inspection of the traffickers in human 
flesh, this illustrious Frenchman was subjected to every vile- 
ness of treatment ; like a horse, compelled to open his mouth, 
to show his teeth, to trot, to- run, to exhibit his strength in 
lifting burthens, and then, like a horse, legally sold in market 
overt. Passing from master to master, after a protracted 
servitude, he achieved his freedom, and regaining France, 
commenced that resplendent career of charity by which he is 
placed among the great names of Christendom. Princes and 
orators have lavished panegyrics upon this fugitive slave; 
and the Catholic Church, in homage to his extraordinary 
virtues, has introduced him into the company of saints. 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 33. 

Less by genius or eminent services, than by sufferings, are 
the fugitive slaves of our country now commended. For 
them every sentiment of humanity is aroused : 



Who could refrain 



That had a heart to love, and in that heart 
Courage to make his love known ?" 

Rude and ignorant they may be ; but in their very efforts 
for freedom, they claim kindred with all that is noble in the 
past. They are among the heroes of our age. Romance 
has no stories of more thrilling interest than theirs. Classi- 
cal antiquity has preserved no examples of adventurous trial 
more worthy of renown. Among them are men whose 
names will be treasured in the annals of their race. By the 
eloquent voice they have already done much to make their 
wrongs known, and to secure the respect of the world. 
History will soon lend them her avenging pen. Proscribed 
by you during life, they will proscribe you through all time. 
Sir, already judgment is beginning. A righteous public sen- 
timent palsies your enactment. — Hon. Charles Sumner, 1852. 



CHEISTIAN RESISTANCE TO THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT. 

Mr. President, The Slave Act violates the Constitution 
and shocks the public conscience. With modesty and yet 
with firmness let me add, sir, it offends against the divine 
law. ISo such enactment can be entitled to support. The 
mandates of an earthly power may be discussed ; those of 
Heaven must at once be performed ; nor can any agreement 
constrain us against God. Such is the rule of morals. Such, 
also, by the lips of judges and sages, has been the proud 
declaration of the English law, whence our own is derived. 
In this conviction patriots have fearlessly braved unjust com- 
mands, and martyrs have died. 

And now, sir, the rule is commended to us. The good 
citizen, as he thinks of the shivering fugitive, guilty of no 
crime, pursued, hunted down like a beast, while praying for 
Christian help and deliverance, and as he reads the. require- 
ments of this act, is filled with horror. Here is a despotic 
mandate, " to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient exe- 
cution of this law." Again let me speak frankly. Not 
rashly would I set myself against any provision of law. 
This grave responsibility I would not lightly assume. But 



34 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

here the path of duty is clear. By the supreme law, which 
commands me to do no injustice; by the comprehensive 
Christian law of brotherhood; by the Constitution, which 1 
have sworn to support, I am bound to disobey this act. 
Never, in any capacity, can I render voluntary aid in its exe- 
cution. Pains and penalties I will endure ; but this great 
wrong I will not do. " I cannot obey, but I can suffer," was 
the exclamation of the author of Pilgrim's Progress, when 
imprisoned for disobedience to an earthly statute. Better 
suffer injustice than do it. Better be the victim than the in- 
strument of wrong. Better be even the poor slave, returned 
to bondage, than the unhappy commissioner. 

There is, sir, an incident of history which suggests a par- 
allel, and affords a lesson of fidelity. Under the triumphant 
exertions of that Apostolic Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier, large 
numbers of the Japanese, amounting to as many as two hun- 
dred thousand — among their princes, generals, and the flower 
of the nobility — were converted to Christianity. After- 
wards, amidst the frenzy of civil war, religious persecution 
arose, and the penalty of death was denounced against all 
who refused to trample upon the effigy of the Redeemer. 
This was the pagan law of a pagan land. But the delighted 
historian records that scarcely one from the multitudes of 
converts was guilty of this apostacy. The law of man was 
set at naught. Imprisonment, torture, death, were preferred. 
Thus did this people refuse to trample on the painted image. 
Sir, multitudes among us will not be less steadfast in refusing 
to trample on the living image of their Redeemer. 

Finally, sir, for the sake of peace and tranquillity, cease to 
shock the public conscience ; for the sake of the Constitution, 
cease to exercise a power which is nowhere granted, and 
violates inviolable rights expressly secured. Leave this 
question where it was left by our fathers, at the formation of 
our national government, in the absolute control of the 
states, the appointed guardians of personal liberty. Repeal 
this enactment. Le£ its terrors no longer rage through the 
land. Mindful of the lowly whom it pursues; mindful of 
the good men perplexed by its requirements ; in the name of 
charity, in the name of the Constitution, repeal this enact- 
ment, totally and without delay. Be inspired by the example 
of W ashington. Be admonished by those words of Oriental 
piety — " Beware of the groans of the wounded souls. Op- 
press not to the utmost a single heart ; for a solitary sigh has 
power to overset a whole world." 

Hon. Charles Sumner, 1852. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 35 



SLAVEEY FORCED INTO KANSAS. 

I will grant, for 'the sake of the argument, that with 
Federal battalions you can carry slavery into Kansas, and 
maintain it there. Are you quite confident that this repub- 
lican form of Government can then be upheld and preserved? 
You will then yourselves have introduced the Trojan horse. 
Xo republican government ever has endured, with standing 
armies maintained in its bosom to enforce submission to its 
laws. A people who have once learned to relinquish their 
rights under compulsion, will not be long in forge ttting that 
they ever had any. In extending slavery into Kansas, there- 
fore, by arms, you will subvert the liberties of the people. 

Senators of the free States, I appeal to you. Believe ye 
the prophets ? I know you do. You know, then, that slavery 
neither works mines and quarries, nor founds cities, nor 
builds ships, nor levies armies, nor mans navies. Why, 
then, will you insist on closing up this new Territory of Kan- 
sas against all enriching streams of immigration, while you 
pour into it the turbid and poisonous waters of African sla- 
very ? Which one of you aU, whether of Connecticut, or of 
Pennsylvania, or of Illinois, or of Michigan, would consent 
thus to extinguish the chief light of civilization within the 
State in which your own fortunes are cast, and in which your 
own posterity are to live? Why will you pursue a policy 
so unkind, so ungenerous and so unjust toward the helpless, 
defenceless, struggling Territory of Kansas, inhabited as it 
is by your own brethren, depending on you for protection 
and safety. Will slavery in Kansas add to the wealth or 
power of one of your own States, or to the wealth, power or 
glory of the Republic ? You, know that it will diminish all 
of these. You profess a desire to end this national debate 
about slavery, which has become for you intolerable. Is it 
not time to relinquish that hope ? You have exhausted the 
virtue, for that purpose, that resided in compacts and plat- 
forms, in the suppression of the right of petition and in arbi- 
trary parliamentary laws, and in abnegation of Federal au- 
thority over the subject of slavery within the national 
Territories. Will you end the debate, by binding Kansas 
with chains, for tiie safety of slavery in Missouri ? Even 
then you must give over Utah to slavery, to make it secure 
and permanent in Kansas ; and you must give over Oregon 
and Washington to both polygamy and slavery, so as to 
guaranty equally the one and the other of those peculiar 
institutions in TJtah ; and so you must go on, sacrificing, on 



36 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

the shrine of peace, Territory after Territory, until the pre- 
vailing nationality of freedom and of virtue shall be lost, and 
the vicious anomalies, which you have hitherto vainly hoped 
Almighty wisdom would remove from among you without 
your own concurrence, shall become the controlling elements 
in the Republic. He who found a river in his path, and sat 
down to wait for the,nood to pass away, was not more un- 
wise than he who expects the agitation of slavery to cease, 
while the love of freedom animates the bosoms of mankind. 
Hon. William H. Seward, 1856. 



THE WRONGS OF KANSAS. 

Take down your map, sir, and you will find that the Ter- 
ritory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the 
middle spot of North America, equally distant from the At- 
lantic on the east, and the Pacific on the west ; from the 
frozen waters of Hudson's Bay on the north, and the tepid 
Gulf (Stream on the south, constituting the precis^ territorial 
centre of the whole vast continent. To such advantage of 
situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are 
added a soil of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undu- 
lating beauty of surface, with a health-giving climate, calcu- 
lated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy to 
be a central pivot of American institutions. 

A few short months only have passed since this spacious 
mediterranean country was open only to the savage, who 
ran wild in its woods and prairies ; and now it has already 
drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than 
Athens crowded within her historic gates, when her sons, 
under Miltiades, won liberty for mankind on the field of 
Marathon ; more than Sparta contained when she ruled 
Greece, and sent forth her devoted children, quickened by a 
mother's benediction, to return with their shields or on them ; 
more than Rome gathered on her seven hills, when, under 
her kings, she commenced that sovereign sway which after- 
wards embraced the whole earth ; more than London held, 
when, on the fields of Crecy and Agincourt, the English 
banner was carried victoriously over the chivalrous hosts of 
France. 

Against this territory, thus fortunate in position and pop- 
ulation, a crime has been committed, which is without exam 
pie in the history of the past. Not in plundering provinces, 
nor in the cruelties of selfish governors, will you find its par- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 37 

all el ; and yet there is an ancient instance, which may show at 
least the path of justice. In the terrible impeachment by 
which the great Roman orator has blasted through all time 
the name of Verres, amidst charges of robbery ami sacrilege, 
the enormity which most aroused the indignant voice of his 
accuser, and which still stands forth with strongest, distinct- 
ness, arresting the sympathetic indignation of all who read 
the story, is, that away in Sicily, he had scourged a citizen of 
Rome — that the cry, " I am a Roman citizen," had been in- 
terposed in vain against the lash of the tyrant governors. 
Other charges were, that he had carried away productions of 
art, and that he had violated the sacred shrines. 

It was in the presence of the Roman Senate that this ar- 
raignment proceeded ; in a temple of the Forum, amidst 
crowds — such as no orator had ever before drawn together — 
thronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to the 
house-tops and neighboring slopes — and under the anxious 
gaze of witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But 
an audience grander far — of higher dignity — of more various 
people, and of wider intelligence — the countless multitude of 
succeeding generations, in every land where eloquence has 
been studied or where the Roman name has been recognized 
— has listened to the accusation, and throbbed condemnation 
of the criminal. 

Sir, speaking in an age of light, and in a land of constitu- 
tional liberty, where the safeguards of elections are justly 
placed among the highest triumphs of civilization, I fearlessly 
assert that the wrongs of much abused Sicily, thus memora- 
ble in history, were small by the side of the wrongs of Kan- 
sas, where the very shrines of popular institutions, more 
sacred than any heathen altar, have been desecrated ; where 
the ballot box, more precious than any work in ivory or 
marble, from the cunning hand of art, has been plundered ; 
and where the cry, "I am an American citizen," has been 
interposed in vain against outrage of every kind, even upoft 
life itself. Are you against sacrilege? I present it for 
your execration. Are you against robbery ? I hold it up 
to your scorn. Are you for the protection of American citi- 
zens ? I show you how their dearest rights have been cloven 
down, while a tyrannical usurpation has sought to install 
itself on their very necks ! — Hon. Charles 8 um?ier, 1856. 

s 

17 



38 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



FANATICISM, 



The Senator from South Carolina* denounces opposition 
to the usurpation in Kansas as an uncalculating fanaticism. 
Sir, fanaticism is found in an enthusiasm or exaggeration of 
opinions, particularly on religious subjects ; but there may be 
a fanaticism for evil as well as for good. Now, I will not 
deny that there are persons among us loving liberty too well 
for their personal good, in a selfish generation. Such there 
may be, and, for the sake of their example, would that there 
were more! In calling them "fanatics," you would cast 
contumely upon the noble army of martyrs, from the earliest 
day down to this hour ; upon the great tribunes of human 
rights, by whom life, liberty, and happiness on earth, have 
been secured; upon the long line of devoted patriots, who, 
throughout history, have truly loved their country ; and upon 
all who, in noble aspirations for the general good, and in for- 
getfulness of self, have stood out before their age, and gath- 
ered into their generous bosoms the shafts of tyranny and 
wrong, in order to make a pathway for truth. You discredit 
Luther, when alone he nailed his articles to the door of the 
church at Wittenberg, and then, to the imperial demand that 
he should retract, firmly replied, "Here I stand; I cannot do 
otherwise, so help me God !" You discredit Hampden, when 
alone he refused to pay the few shillings of ship-money, and 
shook the throne of Charles I. ; you discredit Milton, when, 
amidst the corruptions of a heartless court, he lived on, the 
lofty friend of liberty, above question or suspicion ; you dis- 
credit Russell and Sidney, when, for the sake of their country, 
they calmly turned from family and friends, to tread the nar- 
row steps of the scaffold ; you discredit the early founders of 
American institutions, who preferred the hardships of a wil- 
derness, surrounded by a savage foe, to injustice on, beds of 
$ase ; you discredit our later fathers, who, few in numbers, 
and weak in resources, yet strong in their cause, did not hesi- 
tate to brave the mighty power of England, already encir- 
cling the globe with her morning drum-beats. Yes, sir, of 
such are the fanatics of history, according to the Senator. 
But I tell that Senator, that there are characters badly emi- 
nent, of whose fanaticism there can be no question. Such 
were the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped divinities in 
brutish forms ; the Druids, who darkened the forests of oak 
in which they lived by sacrifices of blood ; the Mexicans, 

* Butler. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 39 

who surrendered countless victims to the propitiation of their 
obscene idols ; the Spaniards, who, under Alva, sought to 
force the Inquisition upon Holland, by a tyranny kindred to 
that now employed to force slavery upon Kansas ; and such 
were the Algerines, when, in solemn conclave, after listening 
to a speech not unlike that of the Senator from South Caro- 
lina, they resolved to continue, the slavery of white Chris- 
tians, and to extend it to the countrymen of Washington! 
Aye, sir, extend it! And in this same dreary catalogue, 
faithful history must record all who now, in an enlightened 
age, and in a land of boasted freedom, stand np, in perversion 
of the Constitution, and in denial of immortal truth, to fasten 
a new shackle upon their fellow-man. If the Senator wishes 
to see fanatics, let him look round among his own associates ; 
let him look on himself. — Hon. Chas. Sumner, 1856. 



SLAVERY'S OEIME AGAINST KANSAS. 

Thus was the crime consummated. Slavery now stands 
erect clanking its chains on the territory of Kansas, sur- 
rounded by a code of death, and trampling upon all cherished 
liberties, whether of speech, the press, the bar, the trial by 
jury, or the electoral franchise. And, sir, all this has been 
done, not merely to introduce a wrong which in itself is a 
denial of all rights ; not merely, as has been sometimes said, 
to protect slavery in Missouri, since it is futile for this State 
to complain of freedom on the side of Kansas, when freedom 
exists without complaint on the side of Iowa, and also on the 
side of Illinois ; but it has been done for the sake of political 
power, in order to bring two new slaveholding senators upon 
this floor, and thus to fortify in the national government the 
desperate chances of a waning oligarchy. As the ship, 
voyaging on pleasant summer seas, is assailed by a pirate 
crew, and robbed for the sake of its doubloons and dollars — 
so is this beautiful Territory now assailed in its peace and 
prosperity, and robbed in order to wrest its political power 
to the side of slavery. Even now the black flag of the land 
pirates from Missouri waves at the mast head; in their laws 
you have the pirate yell, and see the flash of the pirate's 
knife ; while, incredible to relate ! the President, gathering 
the slave power at his back, testifies a pirate sympathy. 

Sir, all this was done in the name of popular sovereignty. 
And this is the close of the tragedy. Popular sovereignty, 
which when truly understood, is a fountain of just power, 



40 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

has ended in popular slavery ; not merely in the subjection 
of the unhappy African race, but of this proud Caucassian 
blood, which you boast. The profession with which you 
began, of All b]f the people, has been lost in the wretched 
reality of Nothing for the people. Popular sovereignty in 
whose deceitful name plighted faith was broken, and an 
ancient landmark of freedom Avas overturned, now lifts itself 
before us like sin, in the terrible picture of Milton, 

" That seemed a woman to the waist, and fair, 
But ended foul in many a scaly fold 
Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed 
With mortal sting ; about her middle round 
A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing barked 
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 
A hideous peal ; yet, when they list, would creep, 
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb, 
And kennel there, yet there still barked and howled 
Within unseen." 

The image is complete at all points ; and, with this expo- 
sure, I take my leave of the crime against Kansas. — Son. 
Chas. /Sumner, 1856. 



OKG/ANIZED EMI&EATION TO KANSAS. 

The Senator inveighs against the Native American party ; 
but his own principle is narrower than any attributed to 
them. They object to- the- influence of emigrants from 
abroad; he objects to the influence of American citizens at 
home, when exerted in States or Territories where they were 
not born! The whole assumption is too audacious for. re- 
spectful argument. But since a great right has been denied, 
the children of the free States, over whose cradles has shone 
the north star, owe it to themselves, to their ancestors, and 
to freedom itself, that this right should now be asserted to 
the fullest extent. By the blessing of God, and under the 
continued protection of the laws, they will go to Kansas, 
there to plant their homes, in the hope of elevating this Ter- 
ritory soon into the sisterhood of free States ; and to such 
end they will not hesitate in the employment of all legitimate 
means, whether by companies of men or contributions of 
money, to swell a virtuous emigration, and they will justly 
scout any attempt to question this unquestionable right. Sir, 
if they failed to do this, they would be fit only for slaves 
themselves. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 41 

God be praised ! Massachusetts, honored commonwealth 
that gives me the privilege to plead for Kansas on this floor, 
knows her rights and will maintain them firmly to the end. 
This is not the first time in history, that her public acts have 
been arraigned, and that her public men have been exposed 
to contumely. Thus it was Avhen, in the olden time, she 
began the great battle whose fruits you ail enjoy. But never 
yet has she occupied a position so lofty as at this hour. By 
the intelligence of her population — by the resources of her 
industry — by her commerce cleaving every wave — by her 
manufactures, various as human skill — by her institutions of 
education, various as human knowledge — by her institutions 
of benevolence, various as human suffering — by the pages of 
her scholars and historians — by the voices of her poets and 
orators, she is now exerting an influence more subtle and 
commanding than ever before — shooting her far-darting 
rays wherever ignorance, wretchedness, or wrong, prevail, 
and flashing light even upon those who travel far to perse- 
cute her. Such is Massachusetts, and, I am proud to believe 
that you may as well attempt, with puny arm, to topple 
down the earth-rooted, heaven-kissing granite which crowns 
the historic sod of Bunker Hill, as to change her fixed re- 
solves for freedom everywhere, and especially now for free- 
dom in Kansas. I exult, too, that in this battle, Avhich sur- 
passes far in moral grandeur the whole war of the Revolu- 
tion, she is able to preserve her just eminence. To the first 
she contributed a larger number of troops than any other 
State in the Union, and larger than all the slave States to- 
gether; and now to the second, which is not of contending 
armies, but of contending opinions, on whose issue hangs 
trembling the advancing civilization of the country, she con- 
tributes, tli rough the manifold and endless intellectual ac- 
tivity of her children, more of that divine spark by which 
opinions are quickened into life, than is contributed by any 
other State, or by all the slave States together, while her 
annual productive industry excels in value three times the 
whole vaunted cotton crop of the whole South. 

Sir, to men on earth it belongs only to. deserve success ; 
not to secure it; and I know not how soon the efforts of 
Massachusetts will wear the crown of triumph. But it can- 
not be that she acts wrong for herself or children, when in 
this cause she thus encounters reproach. ~No ; by the gene- 
rous souls who were exposed at Lexington ; by those who 
stood arrayed at Bunker Hill ; by the many from her bosom 
who, on all the fields of the first great struggle, lent their 
vigorous arms to the cause of all ; by the children she has 



42 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEK. 

borne, whose names alone are national trophies* is Massachu- 
setts now vowed irrevocably to this work. What belongs 
to the faithful servant she will do in all things, and Provi- 
dence shall determine the result. — Hon. Ghas. Sumner. 1856. 



KANSAS AND SOUTH CAROLINA COMPARED. 

The Senator from South Carolina overflows with rage at 
the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied for admission 
as a State ; and with incoherent phrases discharges the loose 
expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and 
then upon her people. 

But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities 
of the Senator are particularly aroused. Coming as he an- 
nounces, "from a State" — ay, sir, from South Carolina — he 
turns with lordly disgust from this newly formed community, 
which he will not recognize even as " a body politic." Pray, 
sir, by what title does he indulge in this egotism ? Has he 
read the history of " the State" which he represents ? He 
cannot surely have forgotten its shameful imbecility from 
slavery, confessed throughout the revolution, followed by its 
more shameful -assumptions for slavery since. He cannot 
have forgotten its Constitution, which is republican only in 
name, confirming power in the hands of the few, and found- 
ing the qualifications of its legislators on " a settled freehold 
estate and ten negroes." And yet the Senator to whom that 
" State" has in part committed the guardianship of its good 
name, instead of moving, with backward treading steps, to 
cover its nakedness, rushes forward in the very ecstasy of 
madness to expose it by provoking a comparison with Kan- 
sas. South Carolina is old ; Kansas is young. South Caro- 
lina counts by centuries, where Kansas counts by years. 
But a beneficent example may be born in a day ; and I ven- 
ture to say, that against the two centuries of the older 
" State," may be already set the two years of trial, evolving 
corresponding virtue, in the younger community. In the 
one is the long wail of slavery ; in the other the hymns of 
freedom. And if we glance at special achievments, it will 
be difficult to find anything in the history of South Carolina 
which presents so much of heroic spirit in an heroic cause as 
appears in that repulse of the Missouri invaders by the be- 
leaguered town of Lawrence, where even the women gave 
their effective efforts to freedom. The matrons of Rome, 
who poured their jewels into the treasury for the public de- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. * 43 

fence — the wives of Prussia, who, with delicate fingers, 
clothed their defenders against French invasion — the mothers 
of our own Revolution, who sent forth their sons, covered 
over with prayers and blessings, to combat for human rights, 
did nothing of self-sacrifice truer than did these women on 
this occasion. Were the whole history of South Carolina 
blotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to 
the day of the last election of the Senator to his present seat 
on this floor, civilization might lose — I do not say how little, 
but surely less than it has already gained by the example of 
Kansas, in its valiant struggle against oppression, and in the 
development of a new science of emigration. Already in 
Lawrence alone there are newspapers and schools, including 
a high school, and throughout this infant Territory, there is 
more mature scholarship far, in proportion to its inhabitants, 
than in all South Carolina. Ah, sir, I tell the Senator that 
Kansas, welcomed as a free State, will be a "ministering 
angel to the Republic, when South Carolina, in the cloak of 
darkness which she hugs, " lies howling." 

Hon. Ghas. Sumner \ 1856. 



+ ♦ > 



AN APPEAL FOE KANSAS. 



Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone and flesh of 
your flesh, with the education of freemen and the rights of 
American citizens, now stand at your door. Will you send 
them away or bid them enter ? Will you push them back to 
renew their struggles with a deadly foe, or will you preserve 
them in security and peace? Will you cast them again into 
the den of tyranny, or will you help their despairing efforts 
to escape ? These questions I put with no common solici- 
tude, for I feel that on their just determination depend all 
the most precious interests of the Republic ; and I perceive 
too'clearly the prejudices in the way and the accumulating 
bitterness against this distant people, now claiming their sim- 
ple birthright, while I am bowed with mortification as I 
recognize the President of the United States, who Should 
have been a staff* to the weak and a shield to the innocent, at 
the head of this strange oppression. 

In this contest, Kansas bravely stands forth — the stripling 
leader, clad in the panoply of American institutions. In 
calmly meeting and adopting a frame of government, her 
people have with intuitive promptitude performed the duties 
of freemen; and when' I consider the difficulties by which 



44 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

she was beset, I find dignity in her attitude. In offering 
herself for admission into the Union as a Free State, she 
presents a single issue for the people to decide. And since 
the slave power now stakes on this issue all its ill-gotten 
supremacy, the people, while vindicating Kansas, will at the 
same time overthrow this tyranny. Thus does the contest 
which she now begins involve not only liberty for herself, but 
for the whole country. God be praised that she did not bend 
ignobly beneath the yoke ! Far away on the prairies she is 
now battling for the liberty of all, against the President, who 
misrepresents all. Everywhere among those who are not in- 
sensible to right, the generous struggle meets a generous re- 
sponse, f 

In all this sympathy there is strength. But in the cause 
itself there is angelic power. Unseen* of men, the great 
spirits of history combat by the side of the people of Kansas, 
breathing a divine courage. Above all towers the majestic 
form of Washington once more, as on the bloody field, bid- 
ding them to remember those rights of human nature for 
which the War of Independence was waged. Such a cause, 
thus sustained, is invincible. 

The contest which, beginning in Kansas, has reached us, 
will soon be transferred from Congress to a broader stage, 
where every citizen will be not only spectator but actor ; and 
to their judgment I confidently appeal. To the people, now 
on the eve of exercising the electoral franchise, in choosing a 
Chief Magistrate of the Republic, I -appeal, to vindicate the 
electoral franchise in Kansas. Let the ballot-box of the 
Union, with multitudinous might, protect the ballot-box in 
that Territory. Let the voters everywhere, while rejoicing 
in their own rights, help to guard the equal rights of distant 
fellow-citizens; that the shrines of popular institutions, now 
desecrated, may be sanctified anew; that the ballot-box now 
plundered, may be restored; and that the cry, "I am an 
American citizen," may not be sent forth in vain against out- 
rage of every kind. In just regard for free labor in that 
Territory, w liich it is sought to blast by unwelcome associa- 
tion with slave labor ; in Christian sympathy with the slave, 
whom it is proposed to task and sell there; in stern con- 
demnation of the crime which has been consummated on 
that beautiful soil ; in rescue of fellow-citizens, now subjugated 
to a tyrannical usurpation ; in dutiful respect for the early 
fathers, whose inspirations are now ignobly thwarted ; in the 
name of the Constitution, which has been outraged — of the 
laws trampled down — of justice banished — of humanity de- 
graded—of peace destroyed — of freedom crushed to earth ; 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 45 

and in 'the name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is 
perfect freedom, I make this last appeal. 

Hoji. Ghas. Sumner \ 1856. 



MASSACHUSETTS AND BEE CHILDEEU. 



To Massachusetts, mother of ns all — great in resources, 
great in children — I now pledge my devotion. Never before 
did she inspire equal pride and affection. My filial love does 
not claim too much when it exhibits her as approaching the 
pattern of a Christian commonwealth, which, according to 
that great English republican, John Milton, ought to be but 
as one huge Christian personality, one mighty growth and 
stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in 
body. Not through any worldly triumph — not through the 
vaults of State Street — the spindles of Lowell — or even the 
learned endowments of Cambridge, is Massachusetts thus ; 
but because, seeking to extend the benign influence of civili- 
zation, which she cultivates at home, she stands forth the 
faithful, uuseduced supporter of human nature. Wealth has 
its splendor, and the intellect has its glory. But there is a 
grandeur in such a service which is above even the regard of 
good men, and will have the immortal life of history. For 
this she has also the reproach and contumely which through- 
out all ages have been poured on those who have striven for 
justice on earth. Not now for the first time in human strug- 
gles has truth, when most dishonored, seemed most radiant 
in gathering glory, even out of obloquy. When Sir Henry 
Vane, courageous champion of the English commonwealth, 
was dragged on a hurdle up the Tower Hill, to suffer death 
by the axe, one of the multitude cried out to him, " You 
never sat on so glorious a seat ;" and again, when Russell 
was exposed in the same streets, on the way to the same 
scaffold, the people, according to the simple narrative of his 
biographer, imagined they saw Liberty and Virtue sitting by 
his side. Massachusetts is not without encouragement in 
her own history. She has 'seen her ports closed by an arbi- 
trary power — has seen her name made a by-word of reproach 
— has seen her cherished leaders, Hancock and Adams, ex- 
cepted from all pardon by the crown ; but then, when most 
dishonored, did Massachusetts deserve most — then was she 
doing most for the cause of us all ; and now, when Massa- 



46 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEK. 

chusetts is engaged in a greater cause than that of our 
fathers, how serenely can she turn from the scoff and jest of 
heartless men. Her only disgrace will be in the disloyalty to 
the truth which is to make her free. Worse ! oh, far worse 
than the evil speaking of others, is the conduct of some of 
her own children. It is hard to see the scholarship which 
has been drawn from her cisterns, and the riches which have 
been accumulated under her hospitable shelter, now employed 
to weaken and discreflfct the cause which is above riches or 
scholarship. It is hard, while our fellow-citizens in Kansas, 
bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, plead for a deliver- 
ance from a cruel usurpation, and while the whole country, 
including our own soil, is trodden down by a domineering 
and brutal despotism, to behold the sons of Massachusetts in 
sympathy, open or disguised, with the vulgar enemy ; quick- 
ening everywhere the lash of the task-master, and helping 
forward the Satanic carnival, when slavery shall be fastened, 
not only upon prostrate Kansas, but upon all the territories 
of the Republic ; when Cuba shall be torn from a friendly 
power by dishonest force, and when the slave trade itself, 
with all its crime, its woe and its shame, shall be opened 
anew under the American flag. With such I have no word 
of controversy at this hour; but turning from them now in 
my weakness, I trust not to seem too severe if I covet for 
the occasion something of the divine power : 

To bend the silver bow with tender skill, 
While void of pain the silent arrows kill. 



II. 

Gladly from these do I turn to another character, yet hap- 
pily spared to Massachusetts, whose heart beats strong with 
the best blood of the Revolution, and with the best senti- 
ments by which that blood was enriched — the only child of 
one of the authors of American liberty — for many years the 
able and courageous representative of Boston on the floor of 
Congress, where his speeches were the masterpieces of the 
time. Distinguished throughout a long career by the grate- 
ful trust of his fellow citizens — happy in all the possessions 
of a well-spent life, and surrounded by love, honor, obedi- 
ence, troops of friends — with an old age which is second 
youth — Josiah Quincy, still erect under the burden of eighty- 
four winters, puts himself before us. In the ardor of youth, 
or the maturity of manhood, did he show himself so grandly 
conspicuous, and add so much to the heroic wealth of his- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 47 

tory? His undaunted soul, lifted already to glimpses of 
another life, may shame the feebler spirits of a later genera- 
tion. There is one other personage, at another period, who, 
with precisely the same burthen of winters, has asserted the 
same supremacy of powers. It is the celebrated Dandolo, 
Doge of Venice, at the age of eighty-four, of whom the his- 
torian Gibbon has said, in words which are strictly applicable 
to our own Quincy : " He shone in the last period of human 
life as one of the most illustrious characters of the time. 
Under the*weight of years he retained a sound understand- 
ing and a manly courage, the spirit of a hero and the wisdom 
of a patriot." This old man carried the Venetian Republic 
over to the Crusaders, and exposed his person freely to all the 
perils of war, so that the historian describes him in words 
again applicable to our day, saying, " In the midst of the 
conflict the Doge, a venerable and conspicuous form, stood 
aloft, in complete armor, on the prow of the galley, while the 
great standard of St. Mark was displayed before him." Be- 
fore the form of our venerable head is displayed the standard 
of a greater Republic than Venice — thrilling with its sight 
greater multitudes than ever gazed on the standard of St. 
Mark, while a sublimer cause is ours than the cause of the 
Crusaders ; for our task is not merely to ransom an empty 
sepulchre, but to ransom the Saviour himself in the bodies of 
his innumerable children ; not merely to displace the infidel 
from a distant foreign soil, but to displace him from the very 
Jerusalem of our liberties. — Hon. Charles Sumner, 1856. 



THE ELECTION OF A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT A REASON POR 
DISUNION. 

I was surprised to hear that gentleman's declaration that 
the election to the Presidency of William H. Seward, or 
Chase, or any other Republican candidate, entertaining like 
opinions with them, would not be a sufficient cause for a dis- 
solution of the Union. He said he would wait for some overt 
act. I should consider the election of such a candidate, by 
a northern sectional majority, as a declaration of war against 
our rights ; and I rejoice in the belief that those whom I 
represent, and the gallant State to which I owe my first and 
highest allegiance, will not hesitate in such contingency, let 
the consequences be what they may, to fall back on their re- 
served rights, and declare to the world, " As for this Union, 
we have no longer any lot or part in it." 



48 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

When this Union was founded, it was regarded as a 
doubtful experiment. Patrick Henry, with his matchless 
eloquence, and many others of the purest and best patriots 
of the land, men who had devoted themselves to the cause 
of the Revolution, opposed the ratification of the Constitu- 
tion. They believed then — and some of them predicted — 
that if the Union was formed, the Southern States would 
sink down into mere appendages of the North. 

If the framers of the Constitution had ever dreamed of 
this persistent, relentless Avar upon the institution*^ slavery, 
they would never have agreed to the formation of the Union 
at all. The question now is, whether, being formed, this 
cause is sufficient to destroy it. 

Mr. Clerk, the southern people have heretofore been 
patient and forbearing under the many injuries which they 
have received. They have lent too willing ears to the syren 
songs of those who cried "Peace, peace." Many of them 
have now despaired of ever witnessing the restoration of 
amity between the two sections. The embittered and hostile 
feeling which now prevails in both regions they believe, how- 
ever much they may regret it, must lead to a dissolution of 
the Union. If that is to be the inevitable result, is it not 
better that this separation should be made by mutual agree- 
ment, as was done by Abraham and Lot, when " they sepa- 
rated themselves the one from the other ?" Yet gentlemen 
tell us that there must be an appeal to arms; and, in some 
quarters, the southern States are threatened with subjugation. 
in case they resist. Thus warned, I trust they will all arm 
at once for the conflict. Such threats can have no other in- 
fluence upon a brave and spirited people. They have all the 
men and materials required for their defense ; and, I dare 
predict, are calmly prepared to meet the issue whenever a 
wanton infraction of their rights, or an unmistakable evidence 
of hostile intentions, such as that to which I have alluded, 
shall render necessary an appeal to the God of justice and the 
arbitrament of the sword. 

If war should follow, as I do not believe that it would, 
then, unless I am deceived in the spirit of the South, they 
would make the struggle memorable in after times, by being 
able to point to many glorious battle-fields, like those of 
Marathon and Morat, Yorktown and New Orleans. I have 
no apprehension respecting the final result of such conflict ; 
but I prefer thai no conflict should take place. I prefer that 
the spirit of fanaticism should be quelled; that this crusade 
against the South should cease; and that we should be af- 
forded what the Constitution intended to assure us — security 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 49 

and protection in the enjoyment of our rights of person and 
and property. — Hon. S. Moore, 1859. 



LET US ALONE. 

Sir, I represent a constituency of Northern Laboeees — 
men who deem it no disgrace that they earn their subsis- 
tence, and lay up a competence for support in after life by 
their daily labor. So far as social position is concerned, they 
are the peers of any man on this floor, ISTorth or South. 
And I will resist, by all the powers that God has given me, 
the extension of a system into their territory which degrades 
them to the level of the negro slave, and which holds that 
all who labor, whether black or white, are fit only to be 
slaves themselves ! 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me say that we seek no 
quarrel with the South. This is an issue which they have 
forced upon us, and, with God's blessing, we will meet it 
as becomes worthy descendants of patriot sires! You some- 
times tell us that all you want is to be let alone. That is 
precisely what we intend to do. We will interfere with 
none of your rights. Whatever is "nominated in the bond," 
that we will yield. In turn is it too much for us to make 
the same request of you — that you will let us alone ? If 
slavery be a blessing, to you shall inure all its benefits. If it 
be a curse, do not seek to plant it upon our soil — to involve 
us in its guilt. We desire to cultivate the relations of peace 
and of fraternal kindness with the people of the South. And 
we say to them, in the language of one of New England's 
most gifted poets: 

" All that sister States should do — all that free States may, 
Heart, liand and purse we proffer, as in our early day ; 
But tins one, dark, loathsome burden, ye must struggle with ALONE, 
And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown !" 

Hon. M. W. Tappan, 1856. 



THE LIMITATION OF SLAVERY EESISTED. 

If slavery be confined to its present limits, the institution 
will necessarily be overthrown. It is only a question of 
time. We have now four million slaves in the fifteen South- 
ern States. That population, doubling itself, according to 

5 



50 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

the census returns, every twenty-five years, by natural in- 
crease — to say nothing of African importations — we will in 
fifty years from now have sixteen millions. What else is 
true? It is a fact known to all, that in the border counties 
of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, slavery is 
almost a nominal thing. Men cannot afford to own slaves 
where, by crossing an imaginary line, they fall into the hands 
of our enemies and their friends, who aid them in their flight. 
Hence you find slave owners in those counties selling off their 
slaves and crowding them down into the States on the Atlan- 
tic coast and Gulf of Mexico. This operation is going on 
daily, as every man knows. Confine us within our present 
limits, and it will not be long before the institution will sink 
of its own weight. We ought not to wait for that time. 
Do you think, gentlemen, that we will remain quiet while 
this is being done ? Do you think that we will ever consent 
to have our four million negroes placed on a footing of equal- 
ity with ourselves, our wives and children ? If you do, I tell 
you that you reckon without your host. The South will 
never submit to that state of things. It matters not what 
evils come upon us ; it matters not how deep we may have 
to wade through blood ; we are bound to keep our slaves in 
their present position. I tell you here, to-day, that the insti- 
tution of slavery must be sustained. The South has made 
up its mind to keep the black race in bondage. If we are not 
permitted to do this inside of the Union, I tell you it will be 
done outside of it. Yes, sir, and we will expand this insti- 
tution ; we do not intend to be confined within our present 
limits; and there are not men enough in all your borders to 
coerce three million armed men in the South, and prevent 
their going into the surrounding territories. 

Hon. Otho M. Singleton, 1859. 



A WESTERN CONFEDERACY. 

Sie, I will not consent that an honest and conscientious 
opposition to slavery forms any part of the motives of the 
leaders of the Republican party. In the earlier stages of the 
abolition agitation, it may have been otherwise ; but not so 
now. This whole controversy has now become but one of 
mere sectionalism, a war for political domination, in which 
slavery performs but the part of the letter x in an algebraic 
equation, and is used now in the political algebra of the day 
only to work out the problem of disunion. It was admitted 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 51 

in 1820, in the beginning, by Rufus King, who hurled the 
first thunderbolt in the Missouri controversy, to be but a 
question of sectional power and control. To-day, it exists 
and is fostered and maintained, because the North has, or 
believes that she has, the power and numbers and strength 
and wealth, and every other element which constitutes a 
State, superior to you of the South. Power has always been 
arrogant, domineering, wrathful, inexorable, fierce, denying 
that constitutions and laws were made for it. Power now 
and here is just what power has been everywhere and in 
every age. But, gentlemen of the North, you who igno- 
rrmtly or wittingly are hurrying this Republic to its destruc- 
tion ; you who tell the South to go out of the Union if she 
dare, and you will bring her back by force or leave her to 
languish and to perish under your overshadowing greatness; 
did it never occur to you that when this most momentous 
but most disastrous of all the events which history shall ever 
to the end of time record, shall have been brought about, the 
West, the great West, which you now coolly reckon yours 
as a province, yours as a fief of your vast empire, may choose, 
of her own sovereign good will and pleasure, in the exercise 
of a popular sovereignty which will demand and will have 
non-intervention, to set up for herself? Did you never dream 
of a Western Confederacy? Did that horrid phantom never 
flit across you in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls 
upon men ? Sir, we have fed you ; we have clothed you ; 
we have paid tribute to, and enriched you, for now these 
sixty years. We it is who have built up your marts of com- 
merce ; we it is who have caused your manufiicturing estab- 
lishments to flourish. Who made Boston? What built up 
New York, till now, like Tyre of old, she sits queen of the 
seas, and her merchant princes and traffickers are among the 
honorable of the earth ? Ihe cotton of the South and the 
XJrodv.ce of the West. Maintain this Union, and you will 
have them still. Dissolve this Union, if you dare; send Cal- 
ifornia and Oregon to the Pacific ; compel the South into a 
southern confederacy ; force us of the West into a western 
confederacy ; and then tell me what position would you as- 
sume among the powers of the earth ? Where then would 
be your pride and arrogance, your trade and business, your 
commerce and your dominion ? 

I know well, that within the Union, we of the West are 
now, and, so far as business and trade are concerned, must 
ever remain, tributaries to the North. You have made us so 
by that magnificent network of railroads which stretches now 
from the Atlantic to and beyond the Mississippi. But be not . 



/ 



52 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

deceived. That "vast inland sea" 
Atlantic Ocean. Once cut off from the powerful and control- 
ling ties of a united Government ; aliens and foreigners to 
each other ; with police and espionage, and armed force at 
every depot upon the frontiers, nature, stronger than man, 
would reassume her rights and her supremacy. You made . 
jhe railroad and the telegraph; but God Almighty made the 
Mississippi and her hundred tributaries. 

Hon. Clement L. Vallandigham^ 1859. 



THREATS OF DISUNION DISREGARDED. 

The fancied temporary interests of the few who might 
desire to import slaves into the Territories, should not be suf- 
fered to divert the national legislature from that line of policy 
demanded by justice, and the permanent interests of the na- 
tion, of the white race, and of the whole' human family. 

But you declare that the Union cannot be maintained un- 
less men are permitted to coerce the emigration of negro 
slaves to the Territories ! Well, sir, this threat produces no 
terror: as far as my knowledge extends, nobody in the 
Northwest is frightened by it, although it originates in a 
high quarter. We understand that it is your interest to stay 
in the Union, and that you have not the power to dissolve 
it ; that a dissolution of the Union would bring on you, in 
tenfold strength, every evil of which you complain. 

With this impotent threat " to dissolve the Union," if a 
Republican should be elected President of the United States, 
you not only demand the disbanding of the Republican party, 
and, by a logical sequence, the repeal of all laws in the free 
States disparaging the institution and prohibiting its exist- 
ence within their jurisdiction ; but you attempt to coerce our 
consciences and judgment, and require us to approve slavery 
as morally right — a humane and Christian institution. In 
this you will never succeed. 

Neither vehement threats of a dissolution of the Union, 
nor any other mode of coercion, will be likely to change our 
opinions of either the morality or expediency of slaveholding. 
The laws of the human mind cannot be changed ; perception, 
memory, conscience and judgment will continue. Conscience 
may be stupefied for a time, but it will again rally and assert 
its right to control the conduct of men. The people of the 
whole North, almost without a solitary exception, believe- 
that slavery is in itself wrong, and may be maintained tern- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. Od 

porarily only, in consequence of the necessities that may sur- 
round the parties which sustain this relation to an inferior 
race. Whenever these necessities cease, they maintain that 
it will be the duty of each to dissolve the relation. Nobody 
in the North, however, maintains that this can ever be effect- 
ed, except by the action of the people of the States where 
the relation exists. The Republicans maintain that Congress 
has no power whatever over this subject within their limits. 
You admonish us, however, that if a gentleman who en- 
tertains the doctrines originally maintained by Washington, 
Jefferson, and the other illustrious men who lived during the 
earlier part of the Republic, from which, as was admitted on 
yesterday by the honorable Senator from Virginia, (Mr. 
Mason,) the Democracy has swerved, should be elected 
President of the United States, in accordance with the Con- 
stitution and the laws, you will destroy the Government. 
When analyzed, could a proposition be more insulting to 
freemen? We must surrender our own reasoning faculties, 
and our consciences and judgment, and follow your behests ! 
We must change, because you have changed ! We must re- 
pudiate, because you have discarded, the opinions of the 
fathers! When we approach the polls, we must represent 
your opinions and not our own, by our votes ! That is, we must 
cease to be freemen, and become your political slaves ! If 
your political opponents will destroy their platform and dis- 
solve their organization ; if the free States will destroy their 
constitutions and repeal their laws on the subject of slavery ; 
^f a majority of the freemen of the country will stultify 
their own judgments, and trample under foot their con- 
sciences; give up freedom of speech and of the, press, and 
cease to exercise the right of freemen at. the polls, you will 
graciously permit the Union to be continued ! Well, sir, this 
mode of preserving the Union would cost us too much. We 
have the hearts and heads and hands and will to preserve it 
in a cheaper manner, let the crisis come when it may. 

Hon. James Harlan, 1860. 



THE YANKEE TWANG. 



My colleague* amused himself with the comic power he 
possesses in imitating the nasal twang of the Yankees of the 
Western Reserve in Ohio. It sounded strange to you as it 



* Mr. Cox. 



S4 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

did to him ; and so it did to the army of Prince Rupert at 
Marston Moor, when the ancestors of these men rushed into 
battle against the mailed chivalry and curled darlings of the* 
court of Charles I. What happened then ? Something 
worthy to be noted, and not forgotten. Stout Cromwell 
and his unconquerable Ironsides, when the day was well 
nigh lost, charged with resistless fury upon the proud 
columns of that host of gentlemen, as they were boastfully 
denominated, and lo ! Prince Rupert and his host were no 
longer tliere. They were scattered as the dried leaves of 
autumn are before the storm-blast of the corning winter. 
That same nasaL twang rang out, on that day, their well 
known war-cry, "the sword of the Lord and Gideon." 
These Yankees are a peculiar people; they are an industri- 
ous, thriving, painstaking race of men. The frailties of these 
men grow out of their very virtues, those stern virtues which 
founded liberty in England, and baptized it in their own 
blood upon Bunker Hill, in America. They will do so again 
if there is a necessity for it. It is a hard matter to deal with 
men who do verily believe that God Almighty and his angels 
encamp round about them. What do they care for earthly 
things or earthly power ? What do they care for kings, and 
lords, and presidents ? They fully believe they are heirs of 
the King of kings. In the hour of battle they seem to 
themselves to stand, like the great Hebrew leader in the 
cleft of the rock ; the glory of the niost high God passes by 
them, and they catch a gleam of its brightness. If you come 
in conflict with the purposes of such men, they will regard 
duty as everything, life as nothing. So it appeared in our 
war of the Revolution. The gentleman from Mississippi said 
that the North got more revolutionary pensions than the 
South. I do not know how that is. How did it happen? 
Gentlemen tell me they would not have pensions in the 
South. I am glad if it be so. But I am not now, never 
have been, and never will be willing to violate history and 
good taste so far as to draw invidious distinctions between 
this or that State or colony, who, by their combined valor, 
won the independence of all the States. While I must 
always venerate the men of New England of that day, I still 
turn with unabated admiration to those of the South, es- 
pecially to Virginia — glorious "Old Dominion," illustrious 
alike for her heroes in war and her sages in peace ; and if it 
depend on vote or effort of mine, the last land warrant of the 
last descendant of her revolutionary heroes shall be located 
on lands, if such can be found, rich as the delta of the Nile ; 
in a climate if it be possible, healthful as was Eden ere yet 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 55 

in had brought death into the home of the first family of 
man. — Hon. Thomas Corwin, 1860. 



EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-INTERVENTION IN THE 
TERRITORIES. 

You cannot make laws for Utah because you have denied 
the power of Congress to make laws for the Territories. 
What is Utah ? A blot on the fair pages of your history, 
which all the waters of Lethe can never wash out-;— a foul, 
incestuous den — a disgrace to a civilized and Christian 
country. That is what comes of this glorious new doctrine 
which you have propagated on all sides. That comes of your 
parting with the wise usages and the wise institutions of 
your fathers ; and so it will ever be the moment you abandon 
those well-established, constitutional rules fixed by the found- 
ers of the Republic. You have abandoned the great high- 
ways of the past — the good macadamized roads made for 
you — every milestone of which was red with Revolutionary 
blood ; you have strayed away from them and wandered after 
will s-o'-the- wisp into swamps and by-paths. All that the 
Republican party wish to do, is to stand up and call you 
back as a mother calls to her lost child, and put you on the 
safe old road again. They call upon you to come out from 
the wilderness ; to quit the shedding of each other's blood 
in fratricidal war for the right to have this or that law ; to 
let the Congress of the United States, who represent the 
fathers, the brothers, the sisters of the peaceful emigrants 
who have gone into the Territories, consider what is best for 
their children and friends. But abandon, as you have aban- 
doned, the institutions of your fathers, and there will be 
neither peace nor progress in the Territories. There will be 
strife here, and civil war there, and wild confusion will reign 
supreme. 

The wise prophet of Israel, after he came down from the 
mountain with the law in -his hand, and found his brother 
Aaron worshipping a golden calf which he had made, was so 
angry that he threw down the tables of the law and' broke 
them. He determined that that wicked people should never 
have an opportunity of worshipping any more golden calves ; 
he made all the women bring in their trinkets and golden 
ornaments and melted them down into one mass. Let us, in 
the same spirit, bring in these memorable idols of ours; 
sacrifice them on the common altar of our country ; shake 
hands, forget, and forgive. — Hon. Thomas Corwin, 1860. 



56 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



DUTY OF THE FUTURE. 

I hope the observations which. I have made, forced from 
me without any of that preparation which is usual, may not 
be entirely worthless. Whether we consider this ever-re- 
curring question of slavery as resting within our unrestricted 
discretion, or whether we regard it as fixed and limited by 
constitutional law — in either aspect, with good sense, guided 
by true patriotism, there is nothing to be feared. The way 
through the future is, in my judgment, open, clear, and 
plain. We cannot be so weak as to give way to childish 
fears, or sink into lethargy' and despair. On the contrary, 
let us " gird up our loins" to the work before us ; for upon 
us this duty is devolved. We cannot escape from it if we 
would. Let us, above all, preserve our Constitution inviolate, 
and the Union which it created, unbroken. By the lights 
they give us, with the aids of an enlightened religion, and an 
ever-improving Christian philosophy, let us march onward and 
onward in the great highway of social progress. Let us 
always keep in the advancing car of that progress — our book 
of constitutions and our Bible. Like the Jews of old, let the 
ark of the covenant be advanced to the front in our march. 
With these to guide us, I feel the proud assurance that our 
free principles will take their way through all coming time ; 
and before them I do believe that the cloven footed altars of op- 
pression, all over the world, will fall down, as Dagon of old 
fell down, and was shivered to pieces in the presence of the 
ark of the living God. But if we halt in this great exodus 
of the nations ; if we are broken into inconsiderable frag- 
ments, and ultimately dispersed, through our follies of this day, 
what imagination can conrpass the frightful enormity of our 
crime! What would the world say of this unpardonable 
sin ? Rather than this, we should pray the kind Father of 
all, even his wicked children, to visit us with the last and 
worst of all the afflictions that fall on sin and sinful man. 
Better for us would it be that the fruitful earth should be 
smitten for a season with barrenness and become dry dust 
and refuse its annual fruits ; better that the heavens for a 
time should become brass, and the ear of God deaf to our 
prayers ; better that famine, with her cold and skinny fingers, 
should lay hold upon the throats of our wives and children; 
better that God should commission the angel of destruction 
to go forth over the whole land, scattering pestilence and 
death from his dusky wing, than that we should prove faith- 
less to our trust, and by that means our light should be 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 57 

quenched, our liberties destroyed, and all our bright hopes 
die out in that night which knows no coming dawn. 

Hon. Thomas Gorwin^ 1860. 



UBIQUITY OF THE YANKEE. 

As to this question of territorial legislation, touching 
slavery in the Territories, let gentlemen pause upon that, and 
consider before they rush to conclusions. I tell gentle- 
men of the South — and the day will come when they will 
remember my advice — not to trust Northern people to make 
laws of their own in the Territories for the exclusion or pro- 
tection of slavery. I do not care where you go, in any lati- 
tude under the heavens' where a white man can live and work, 
the Yankees will go there too. Wherever clocks can be 
used or sold, there they will be. If they come to learn that 
it is the law of the Republic that the status of the country is 
fixed forever by the first inhabitants, instead of settling that 
status here, among men who are responsible to the country 
and to history, they will settle the question as they did in 
Kansas. They will always beat you, if you open the question 
in that way. Let this calm, deliberative, legislative assert 1 ^y 
of gentlemen, who legislate for the whole Union of juny 
millions of people — let them determine whether it is better 
that slavery should go there or not ; let that question come 
here, where we look at this great country, and all the Terri- 
tories we have, and all we may ever acquire, as common 
patrimony, alike of all the States, and all the people we rep- 
resent. 

The population which usually goes into new Territories is 
generally led by an eager and sometimes wild spirit of adven- 
ture. The people will keep out the negro, because they have no 
negroes of their own, no slaves of their own. I care not whether 
the Territory be at the north pole or near the equator, they will 
go there, and will keep your negroes out, if you allow them to 
determine whether slavery shall be there or not. I should 
think that any man who has looked at the history of Kansas 
for the last three years, with reference to this matter, will 
not doubt my conclusions. In consequence of Congress 
giving up this great conservative power to make laws for 
an uncongenial heterogeneous people, civil war raged for 
three years over the beautiful plains of Kansas, where there 
should have been nothing heard but the jocund whistle of 
the plowman driving his team to the field, and where nothing 

3* 



58 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

else or worse would have been heard, if Congress had only 
made laws to govern that Territory, and sent its governor, 
and, if necessary, troops, to execute the law. You made an 
experiment there, and you know the result. 

lion. Thomas Corwin, 1860. 



MAN'S NATURAL EIGHT TO THE SOIL. 

The Government, by its existing land policy, has thus 
caused to be abstracted from the earnings of its hardy 
pioneers almost seventeen hundred million dollars for the 
mere privilege of enjoying one of God's bounties to man. 
This large amount has been abstracted from the sons of toil 
without rendering any equivalent, save a permit from the 
State to occupy a wilderness, to which not a day or hour of 
man's labor had been applied to change it from the condition 
in which the God of nature made it. Why should govern- 
ments seize upon any of the bounties of God to man, and 
make them a source of revenue? While the earth was 
created for the whole human family, and was made its 
abiding place through the pilgrimage of this life, and since 
the hour of the primal curse, "In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thoj eat bread," man has been forced to the cultivation of 
the soil to obtain subsistence for himself and the means of 
promoting the welfare of the race, why should governments 
wrest from him the right to apply his labor to such, unoccu- 
pied portion of the earth's surface as may be necessary for 
his. support until he has contributed to the revenues of the 
State, any more than to permit him to breathe the air, enjoy 
the sunlight, or quaff from the rills and rivers of the earth ? 
It would be just as rightful, were it possible to be done, to 
survey the atmosphere off into quarter sections, and transfer 
it by parchment titles; divide the sun into quantum of rays, 
and dole it out to groping mortals at a price ; or arch over 
the water of the earth into vast reservoirs, and sell it to 
dying men. In the language of remarks heretofore made on 
this subject, why has this claim of man to monopolize any 
of the gifts of God to man been confined, by legal codes, to 
the soil alone ? Is there any other reason than that it is a 
right which, having its origin in feudal times — under a system 
that regarded man but as an appendage of the soil that he 
tilled, and whose life, liberty, and happiness were but means 
of increasing the pleasures, pampering the passions and appe- 
tites of his liege lord — and, having once found a place in the 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 59 

books, it has been retained by the reverence which man is 
wont to pay to the past and to time-honored precedents? 
The human mind is so constituted that it is prone to regard 
as right what has come down to us approved by long usage, 
aud hallowed by gray age. It is a claim that had its origin 
with the kindred idea that royal blood flows only in the 
veins of an exclusive few, whose souls are more ethereal, 
because born amid the glitter of courts, and cradled amid 
the pomp of lords and courtiers ; and, therefore, they are 
to be installed as rulers and lawgivers of the race. Most 
of the evils that afflict society have had their origin in 
violence and wrong enacted into law by the experience of 
the past, and retained by the prejudices of the present. 

Is it not time you swept from your statute-book its still 
lingering relics of feudalism ? blotted out the principles in- 
grafted upon it by the narrow-minded policy of other times, 
and adapted the legislation of the country to the spirit of the 
age, and to the true ideas of man's rights and relations to his 
Government 1—Hon. G. A. Grow, 1860. 



FREE HOMES FOR FREE MEN, 

I would provide in our land policy for securing homesteads 
to actual settlers ; and whatever bounties the Government 
should grant to the old soldiers, I would have made in money 
and not in land warrants, which are bought in most cases by 
the speculator as an easier and cheaper mode of acquiring 
the public lands. So they only facilitate land monopoly. 
The men who go forth at the call of their country to uphold 
its standard and vindicate its honor, are deserving, it is true, 
of a more substantial reward than tears to the dead and 
thanks to the living ; but there are soldiers of peace as well 
as of war, and though no waving plume beckons them on to 
glory or to death, their dying scene is oft a crimson one. 
They fall leading the van of civilization along untrodden 
paths, and are buried in the dust of its advancing columns. 
]STo monument marks the scene of deadly strife ; no stone 
their resting place ; the winds sighing through the branches 
of the forest alone sing their requiem. Yet they are the 
meritorious men of the Republic — the men who give it 
strength in war and glory in peace. The achievements of 
your pioneer army, from the day they first drove back the 
Indian tribes IVom the Atlantic seaboard to the present hour, 



60 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

have been the achievements of science and civilization over 
the elements, the wilderness, and the savage. 

If rewards or bounties are to be granted for true heroism 
in the progress of the race, none is more deserving than the 
pioneer who expels the savage and the wild beast, and opens 
in the wilderness a home for science and pathway for civili- 
zation. 

" Peace hath her victories, 
No less renowned than war." 

The paths of glory no longer lead over smoking towns and 
crimsoned fields, but along the lanes and by-ways of human 
misery and woe, where the bones and sinews of men are 
struggling with the elements, with the unrelenting obstacles 
of nature, and the not less unmerciful obstacles of a false 
civilization. The noblest achievement in this world's pilgrim- 
age is to raise the fallen from their degradation ; soothe the 
broken hearted, dry the tears of woe, and alleviate the suffer- 
ings of the unfortunate in their pathway to the tomb. 

" Go say unto the raging sea, Be still ; 
Bid the wild, lawless winds obey thy will ; 
Preach to the storm, and reason with despair ; 
But tell not misery's son that life is fair." 

If you would lead the erring back from the paths of vice 
and crime to virtue and to honor, give him a home — give 
him a hearthstone, and he will surround it with household 
gods. If you would make men wiser and better, relieve 
your almshouses, close the doors of your penitentiaries, and 
break in pieces your gallows; purify the influences of the 
domestic fireside, for that is the school in which human char- 
acter is formed, and there its destiny is shaped ; there the 
soul receives its first impress, and man his first lesson, and 
they go with him for weal or for woe through life. For puri- 
fying the sentiments, elevating the thoughts, and developing 
the noblest i; .pulses of man's nature, the influences of a rural 
fireside and an agricultural life are the noblest and the best. 
In the obscurity of the cottage, far removed from the seduc- 
tive influences of rank and affluence, are nourished the vir- 
tues that counteract the decay of human institutions, the 
courage that defends the national independence, and the in- 
dustry that supports all classes of the state. 

Son. G. A. Grow, 1860. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 



THE HOMESTEAD THE SOUEOE OF NATIONAL GREATNESS. 

Max, in defence of his hearthstone and fireside, is invinci- 
ble against a world of mercenaries. 

Let ns adopt the policy cherished by Jackson, and indic^ 
ted in his annual message to Congress in 1832, in which he 
says: 

" It cannot be doubted that the speedy settlement of these 
lands constitutes the true interest of the Republic. The 
wealth and strength of a country are its population, and the 
best part of the population are the cultivators of the soil." 

Why should the Government hold the public domain 
longer as a source of revenue, when it has already more than 
paid all costs and expenses incurred in its acquisition and 
management? Even if the Government had a right, based 
in the nature of things, thus to hold these lands, it would be 
adverse to a sound national policy to do so ; for the real 
wealth of a country consists not in the sum of money paid 
into its treasury, but in its flocks, herds, and cultivated fields. 
Nor does its real strength consist in fleets and armies, but in 
the bones and sinews of an independent yeomanry and the 
comfort of its laboring classes. Its real glory consists not in 
the splendid palace, lofty spire, or towering dome; but in the 
intelligence, comfort, and happiness of the fireside of its 
citizens. 

" What constitutes a State ? 
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate ; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned, 

Not bays and broad-armed ports, 
Where laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 

Not starred and spangled courts, 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 

No ! men, high-minded men. 
******* 

Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain ; 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : 

These constitute a State." 

Had the policy advocated by Gracchus, of distributing the 
public lands among the landless citizens of the nation, been 
adopted, the Roman fields would have been cultivated by 
free men instead of slaves, and there would have been a race 
of men to stay the ravages of the barbarian. The eternal 
city would not then have fallen an easy prey to the Goth and 



62 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

the Vandal; but the star of her empire might have waved 
in triumph long after the ivy twined her broken columns. 

The associations of an independent freehold are eminently 
calculated to ennoble and elevate the possessor. It is the 

«fe-spring of a manly national character, and of a generous* 
atriotism; a patriotism that rushes to the defence of the 
country and the vindication of its honor, with the same zeal 
and alacrity that it guards the hearthstone and the fireside. 
Wherever Freedom has unfurled her banner, the men who 
have rallied around to sustain and uphold it have come from 
the workshop and the field, where, inured to heat and to 
cold, and to all the inclemencies of the season, they have ac- 
quired the hardihood necessary to endure the trials and pri- 
vations of the camp. An independent yeomanry, scattered 
over our vast domain, is the best and surest guarantee for 
the perpetuity of our liberties ; for their arms are the citadel 
of a nation's power, their hearts the bulwarks of liberty. 
Let the public domain, then, be set apart and consecrated as 
a patrimony to the sons of toil ; close your land office forever 
against the speculator, and thereby prevent the capital of the 
country seeking that kind of investment — from absorbing the 
hard earnings of labor without rendering an equivalent. 
While the laborer is thus crushed by the system established 
by the Government, by which so large an amount is abstract- 
ed from bis earnings for the benefit of the speculator, in ad- 
dition to all the other disadvantages' that ever beset the une- 
qual struggle between the bones and sinews of. men and dol- 
lars and cents, what wonder is it that misery and want so 
often sit at his fireside, and penury and sorrow surround his 
death bed ? 

While the pioneer spirit goes forth into the wilderness, 
snatching new areas from the wild beast and bequeathing 
them a legacy to civilized man, let not the Government 
dampen his ardor and palsy his arm by legislation that places 
him in the power of soulless capital and grasping speculation; 
for upon his wild battle field these are the only foes that his 
own stern heart and right arm cannot vanquish. 

Hon. G. A. Grow, 1860. 



JOHN BROWN'S "INVASION." 

I trust the calmer judgment of the other side of the 
House will modify their views heretofore expressed, and limit 
and soften the sweeping judgment which impeached a whole 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 63 

political party of conspiracy to promote servile insurrec- 
tion. 

I think they will be inclined to take a somewhat different 
view of* the origin, the character, and the scope of John 
Brown's crime. 

It was no invasion of Virginia at all ; still less an invasion 
of Virginia by or from a free State. It was a conspiracy to 
free negroes ; arrested in the attempt ; defended with arms; 
stained with murder, and punished with death. It was a 
crime to be dealt with by judge and jury and sheriff. 

The utmost vigilance of two governments has failed to 
trace a single connection with any body of men in any State. 
Two of Brown's confederates were arrested in Pennsylvania 
wi 111 out warrant and carried without a guard to jail in Vir- 
ginia. His arsenal contained two hundred Sharpe's rifles and 
something over a thousand pikes, his army consisted of about 
twenty men, and though rumor promised him succor, no one 
ever saw a body of men or a single man marching to join him 
or to rescue him. Not a slave joined him voluntarily; not 
one lifted his hand against his master; alt were anxious to 
return to the bosom of their master's families. 

Atrocious as was the crime, and great as is the cause I 
have to deplore some of the best blood shed, that crime has 
revealed a state of fact and of feeling, both among our own 
population and that of the free States, on which . our eyes 
ought to rest with satisfaction, in view of the future. 

It negatives the existence of any conspiracy against our 
peace in the free States of the confederacy. Neither the 
plan nor the execution revealed any higher intelligence or 
greater power behind the crazy enthusiasts who acted in the 
tragedy. To lay this blood at the door of a great political 
party of our fellow-citizens, who now control the govern- 
ments of every free State but tWq, in spite of the indignant 
denial of all their Representatives here, and without a parti- 
cle of proof in fact, is not reasonable. It is to call Dirk 
Hatteraick's defence, in his lair, an invasion of Scotland ! It 
is to lay the bloody deeds of Balfour of Burleigh on the 
whole body of the Protestants in -Scotland! 

But the keenness with which gentlemen feel this crime 
against the peace of a slave State may well enable them to 
appreciate how the more aggravated events in Kansas in- 
flamed the minds of men in the free States, and fired the 
fanaticism of Brown to the point of bloody revenge. 

That men and women of like mind, in whom, on one sub- 
ject, the ideas of right and wrong are sadly disordered, sym- 
pathized with the convicts; that some papers applauded his 



64 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

deed, and some pulpits echoed his eulogy, are certainly symp- 
toms of no sound state of morals in the actors ; but they are 
of no. political significance in the populous North. On this 
floor they have no representative. That bloody type of 
fanaticism is, of all things, most rare among the Abolition.- 
ists; and they are a body of enthusiasts who have never, to 
my knowledge, had ten Representatives in this hall. But, to 
sympathize with a criminal, to pity a convict, to consider the 
conviction an expiation, and the execution a martyrdom, is 
too common at this day to excite surprise in any case: Even 
with the ministers of religion, the ascent of the scaffold is 
Jacob's ladder — the gallows is the very gate of Heaven ; and 
the old formula of pax et rniserioordia is changed for one in 
the spirit, if not in the words, of Edgeworth, "Son of St. 
Louis, ascend to Heaven !" 

I dwell on these matters the more, because they have been 
made the occasion of exaggerated inferences and the proofs 
of unfounded fears, which a more thorough or cooler con- 
templation of the manifestations of thought and feeling in 
our free American society will dispel. I seek for signs of 
peace. I will explore every region for ground of returning 
confidence. I think there is no ground for the excitement 
which has prevailed. I think the longer gentlemen look at 
the facts, they will the more surely see that their feelings led 
them to extremes which they will not be inclined to repeat. 
Hon, Henry Winter Davis, 1860. 



POLYGAMY IN UTAH. 

The existence of such an institution as prevails in Utah, 
under the protection of the laws of the United States, is an 
outrage upon the moral feelings of our whole population. It 
is, as I conceive, an insult to our own wives and our own 
daughters, and the wives and daughters of our constituents. 
It is a reflection upon the pure and elevated morality of the 
United States, that such an institution as this should go un- 
whipped of justice, and flourish and prosper, and laugh its 
defiance, under the groundless pretence of constitutional 
license. While it continues, "the slow, unmoving finger of 
scorn" will be pointed at us by the civilized world, and we 
will merit the reproach for winking at and sustaining excesses 
such as, if equalled, could not have been excelled, in Sodom 
and Gomorrah in the days of old. 

I, for one, advocate the enactment of this law in the name 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 65 

of the respectable and virtuous women of the United States. 
Their sex is degraded and disgraced by the practices which 
prevail in a worse than heathen territory. Every high- 
minded and honorable woman, who values the purity of the 
female character, must feel that she is insulted when Utah 
can be designated as a region of wholesale frailty, or quoted 
as an evidence of female weakness ; and that the infamous 
practices which prevail there, if not directly sanctioned, are 
at least scandalously tolerated by the Government of the 
United States. In no part of the world is woman, as a gen- 
eral rule, treated with such universal deference and respect as 
are extended to her in our own country. She richly deserves 
it all. And when I say this, I say it in no spirit of unmean- 
ing compliment. Woman nurses us in infancy ; she is our 
companion in maturer life ; the gentle echo of her footsteps 
is heard in the chamber of sickness; the soft pressure of her 
kind hand is felt upon the brow of pain ; she sheds tears 
over the dying couch of man and strews flowers upon his 
grave. She has a noble and generous heart, and her influence 
is generally exerted for good. And if there is anything 
under heaven for which we should feel grateful to our Crea- 
tor, it is for giving us woman as the highest, last, and great- 
est blessing to man. It was designed that she should give 
her whole heart in exchange for the undivided affection of 
man, and become his partner in lawful marriage. Enthroned 
in the domestic circle, she becomes our refuge amidst the 
storms and conflicts of life, and sheds a halo of happiness 
around the joys of home. Among barbarians she is treated 
as an inferior ; but with her sympathizing and angelic nature, 
her instinctive love of right, and her wondrous capacity for 
influence upon the mind of man, the precepts of Christianity 
have elevated her in the scale of being, until in every civil- 
ized land she has attained her true position ; and in this free 
and happy country of ours especially, she wields an influence 
such as she never exerted before, but not more than is amply 
her due. Let not that influence be paralyzed by any stigma 
or reproach which we can remove ; but rather let it be hon- 
ored, respected and enlarged by every means in our power. 
Hon. Thomas H. B. Nelson, 1860. 



LEGISLATIVE CENSURE EEPELLED. 

Me. Chairman, The Honorable the legislature of Mary- 
land has decorated me with its censure. It is my purpose to 



66~ THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

acknowledge that compliment. It is long, sir, since the 
party which now controls the legislature of Maryland has 
been so fortunate as to have a majority in both its branches ; 
and it has so conducted itself that it is probable it will be 
long ere again it succeeds in getting that control. 

If one may judge from the course and conduct of that 
body, the gentlemen who conxpose it are perhaps more sur- 
prised at their present power than their opponents. They 
do not appear to be less bewildered or more to have changed 
their original nature than Christophero Sly, when waking up, 
after his debauch, in the nobleman's chamber, dazzled with 
the unaccustomed elegance which surrounded him, he began 
to question himself thus : 

" Am I a lord ? and have I such a lady ? 
Or do I dream ? or have I dream'd till now ? 
I do not sleep ; I see, I hear, I speak ; 
I smell sweet savors, and I feel soft things ; 
Upon my life, I am a lord, indeed ; 
And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly. 
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight ; 
And, once again, a pot o' the smallest ale /" 

Sudden elevation has never changed the character of the 
person accidentally raised to a position he was never intended 
by nature to occupy ; and those who imagine it ever can may 
free themselves from that delusion by looking at the legis- 
lature of Maryland. That majority, which now presumes to 
represent the people of Maryland, are as much out of place 
in her legislative halls as was Christophero in the lordly 
chamber ; and they retain and reveal their natural instincts 
and ability as did Christophero his preference for the smallest 
ale over sack. 

There is no department of legislation to which, in the 
brief period of their power, they have not applied their fin- 
gers ; and it would be doing them injustice to say that there 
is any they have adorned. 

Greatly deficient in that first quality which constitutes the 
legislator — sound practical common sense — they abound in 
that genius of ignorance which so amazed and delighted 
Montesquieu's Persian in the , Parisian professors — a genius 
which enabled them to undertake to practice and teach, with 
the utmost confidence, arts and sciences of which they knew 
nothing. 

I, sir, have no apologies to make for the vote which they 
see fit to condemn. I have no excuses to render. What I 
did, I did on my own judgment, and did not look across my 



SPEECHES OE THE TIMES. 67 

shoulder to see what my constituents would think. I told 
my constituents that I would come here a free man, or not 
at all ; and they sent me here on that condition. I told them 
that if they Avanted a slave to represent them, they could get 
plenty ; hut I was not one. I told them that I had already 
passed through more than one difficult, complex, dangerous 
session of Congress; that I had been obliged, again and 
again, to do that which is least grateful to my feelings, to 
stand not merely opposed to my honorable political oppo- 
nents, but to stand alone among my political friends without 
the strength and support which a public man receives from 
being buoyed up breast-high by men of like sentiments, 
elected on like principles, and who, if there be error, would 
stand as a shield and bulwark between him and his responsi- 
bility. I foresaw then, exactly as it resulted, that the time 
would come when I would be obliged again to take that 
stand ; and I wanted my people to know it, so that if they 
chose to have another, one who would go contrary to his 
judgment, and bend like a willow when the storm came, 
they might pick him out, and choose the material for their 
work. 

I know that I have to meet — and I shall meet with all 
equanimity — all the obloquy that is attached to the course 
that I have felt it to be my duty to pursue ; and I know that 
so far as I am worth pursuing — a gentleman in the legisla- 
ture had difficulties about passing the resolution for fear it 
should give me too much importance — so far as I am worth 
pursuing, I do not cloubt that I shall be well hounded. I 
remember that a great many years ago, not this hall, but the 
old Hall of Representatives, was the scene of a great strug- 
gle, which excited the country at that day as much as the 
one through which we have just passed excited us in our 
day ; and I remember, sir, that there was an illustrious in- 
dividual who there found himself bound by his duty to the 
country to depart from his personal preferences, and, to some 
extent, from his political friends, and to cast a decisive vote 
for John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, for President. 
And from that clay the howl of "bargain and corruption" 
pursued him — even to his grave! Sir, I have sat at his feet 
and learned my political principles. I can tread his path of 
political martyrdom. Before any cry of legislatures or 
people I will not yield ; they may pass over my prostrate 
body or my ruined reputation ; but step aside I will not to 
avoid either fate. — Hon. Henry Winter Davis, 1860. 



68 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE EIGHT OF FEEE DISCUSSION. 

Sir, I claim the right of discussing the question of slavery 
anywhere, on any square foot of American soil over which 
the stars and stripes float, and to which the privileges and 
immunities of the Constitution extend. Under the Consti- 
tution, Avhich guarantees to me free speech, I claim it, and I 
demand it. 

The gentleman comes from a slave State, in which they are 
in the habit of speaking of the laboring classes in the north- 
ern States as " greasy mechanics," " filthy operatives," 
"small-fisted farmers," and they jeer at us as worse than the 
slaves. This insulting language can be, and is, used in the 
free States without molestation or injury. Yet they say, 
" If you come here and utter the sentiments which you sin- 
cerely believe, we will hang you." If a mechanic from a free 
State goes there 4nd utters what he thinks — that if they 
had more white laborers, and fewer black ones, labor in the 
South would be more respectable — what do you do with 
him ? You denude and scourge him, and, to intensify the 
indignity, you drive the knotted thong, by the hand of a 
slave, deep in his quivering flesh ; then tar and feather him ; 
and then put him on the cars, still naked, to be sent a long 
distance, and threaten with violence the man who has the 
compassion to give him a cup of coffee. And finally, after 
being jeered at every station along the route, this victim of 
your cruelty, a free citizen, crawls into a stable and begs — 
stealthily begs — the cast-off clothes of an ostler to hide his 
nakedness. You drive away young ladies that go to teach 
school, imprison or exile preachers of the Gospel, and pay 
your debts by raising the mad-dog cry of abolition against 
the agents of your creditors. 

Mr. Chairman, I say I claim the privilege of going any- 
where and everywhere within the limits of this American 
Republic, as a free citizen, unmolested, and of uttering, in an 
orderly and legal way, any sentiment that I choose to utter. 
Are we, for that, in these United States, to be subjected to 
violence, outrage, tar and feathers, burning, imprisonment 
and the gallows ? Answer that question. I know that gen- 
tlemen say self-preservation is the first law of nature ; but if 
you cannot keep slavery and allow free discussion, then I 
say, in God's name, before free discussion and all the rights 
of free citizens are to, be sacrificed to the Moloch of slavery, 
that Moloch must be immolated at the shrine of liberty, free 
speech, free discussion, and all those rights that cluster 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 69 

around an American citizen. Why, Mr. Chairman, a citizen 
of Rome, when the scourge was already upraised, and about 
to fall upon him, if he uttered the cry, " I am a Roman citi- 
zen," arrested that scourge. And, sir, is it not a prouder 
position to be an American, than ^to be a Roman, citizen ? 
And are we in the nineteenth century, living under this Con- 
stitution, with our free institutions — are our persons and our 
rights to be less sacred than they were under the old Roman 
administration, eighteen centuries ago ? 

Hon. Owen Lovejoy, 18G0. 



JOHN BROWN. &c 



Mr. Chairman, this affair of John Brown brings us to the 
reality of things. This raid confronts us with slavery, and 
makes us ask, is slaveholding right? and if so, what rights 
has it ? You want me to curse this man. I will not curse 
him. You want me to pour out execrations upon the head 
of old Ossawattomie. Though all the slaveholding Balaks 
in the country fill their houses with silver and proffer it, I 
will not curse John Brown. I do honestly condemn what 
he did, from my stand-point, and, with my convictions, I 
disapprove of his action, that is true ; but I believe that his 
purpose was a good one ; that so far as his own motives be- 
fore God were concerned, they were honest and truthful ; 
and no one can deny that he stands head and shoulders above 
any other character that appeared on the stage in that 
tragedy from beginning to end ; from the time he entered 
the armory there to the time when he was strangled by Gov. 
" Fussation." He was not guilty of murder or treason. He 
did unquestionably violate the statute against aiding slaves 
to escape; but no blood was shed, except by the panic- 
stricken multitude, till Stevens was fired upon while waving 
a flag of truce. 

But as I remarked, sir, this brings us to confront slavery, 
and ask what right this Caliban has upon earth. I say, no 
right. My honest conviction — and I do not know why gen- 
tlemen need take offence ; they need not unless they choose — 
my honest conviction is, that all these slaveholding laws 
have the same moral power and force that rules among 
pirates have for the distribution of their booty; that regula- 
tions among robbers have for the division of their spoils. I 
want to know by what right you can come and make me a 
slave? I want to know by what right you can say my child 



*70 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

shall be your slave ? I want to know by what right you say 
that the mother shall not have her child, given to her from 
God through the martyrdom of maternity ?• Hear that ex- 
quisite warble of a mother's love : 

" Ere last year's sun had left the sky, 
A "birdling sought my Indian nest, 
And folded, ah ! so lovingly, 
Its tiny wings upon my breast." 

Now, where is the wretch that would dare to go up and 
take that fluttering and panting bird from the bosom of its 
mother, and say, " It is mine ; I will sell it like a calf; I will 
sell it like a pig?" What right had that mother to her 
babe ? Was it because she was Fanny Forrester, the gifted 
authoress; was it because she was the wife of a venerable 
and venerated missionary ? No, it was because she was its 
mother ; and every slave mother has just as good a title to 
her babe as Fanny Forrester had to hers. N"o laws can 
make it right to rob her. I say, in God's name, my child is 
mine ; and yet I have no right to mine that a slave father has 
not to his child. Not a particle. The same argument that 
proves my right to my personal liberty, proves the right of 
every human being to his. The argument that proves my 
right to my children, gives the same title, the same sacred 
claim to every father. They, as I, get it from their God, 
and no human enactment can annul the claim. No, sir, 
never ! Therefore, every slave has a right to his freedom, in 
spite of your slave laws. Every slave has a right to run 
away, in spite of your slave laws. I tell you, Mr. Chairman, 
and I tell you all, that if I were a slave, and had I the 
power, and were it necessary to achieve my freedom, I would 
not hesitate to fill up and bridge over the chasm that yawns 
between the hell of slavery and the heaven of freedom with 
the carcasses of the slain. Give me freedom. Hands off. 
TJnthrottle that man. Give him his liberty. He is entitled 
to it from his God. With these views, I do not think, of 
course, it is any harm to help away a slave. I told you that 
a year ago. I need not repeat it. A gentleman says I steal 
them. 

Who steals, when a man comes and takes my child from 
my hearthstone ? Who steals, when he comes and takes the 
babe, flesh of my flesh, and. bone of my bone ? Who steals ? 
I tell you that I have no more hesitation in helping a fugi- 
tive slave than I have in snatching a lamb from the jaws of 
a wolf, or disengaging an infant from the talons of an eagle. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 11 

"Not a bit. Long enough has the nation crouched and 
cowered in the presence of this stupendous wrong. Here 
and now I break the spell, and disenchant the Republic from 
the incantation of this accursed sorceress. It is simply a 
question whether it will pay to go down into the den where 
the wolf is. If you would only go into your lair, and crunch 
the bones and tear the flesh of your victims we might let you 
alone ; but you will not. You claim the right to go with 
this flesh in your teeth all over our Territories. We deny it. 

Hon. Oicen Lovejoy, 1860. 



SLAVEKY AND THE CON STITUTION. 

The charge of having spoken against the Constitution was 
thrown in my face here once before ; and I denied it. It 
never had the least foundation in truth. I always defended 
the Constitution, because it was for liberty. It was ordained 
by the people of the United States — not by a superannuated 
old mummy of a judge — and a Jesuit at that — but by the 
people of the United States, to establish justice, secure the 
blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity, and to 
secure the natural rights of every human being within its 
exclusive jurisdiction. Therefore I love it. 

These men can perceive nothing in the Constitution but 
slavery. A young man leads a blushing bride to the altar, 
and takes the marital vow before God and attendant wit- 
nesses to love, cherish and protect her. There she stands 
— the divinest thing that God has fashioned and placed upon 
earth — radiant in the beauty of youth, her cheek glowing 
with the color of the rose, which expands and fades away 
into that of the lily ; her eyes sparkling like the stars from 
the depths of blue, and her tresses falling around her neck 
like the locks of the morning. Is the mole on that fair, round 
neck, or the wart on that plump, soft hand, the woman 
whom the bridegroom swore to love and cherish ? Say, sir, 
is it ? So there is the Constitution — instinct with freedom, 
radiant with the principles of universal liberty, seizing the 
inspired utterances of our Magna Charta, and reducing them 
to practical and organic realization. Now, Sir, I insist that 
if the clauses that are deemed to refer to the subject of slav- 
ery mean all that the wildest enthusiasm claims them to mean, 
they bear no other relation or proportion to the Constitution 
which I swear to support than the excrescence on the hand 
or neck does to the woman whom the bridegroom vowed to 



72 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

love and cherish. He loves her not for these things, but in 
spite of them. 

So I love the Constitution ; not in consequence of these 
things which are alleged to be in it, but in spite of them. 
But you will say, the woman had a right to sport an excres- 
cence on her hand if she chose. I concede it; and as a Fed- 
eral law-maker I concede that the States have a right to sport 
this fungus of slavery, because it is beyond my reach. But 
time rolls away. This youthful pair have years of middle age 
upon them. Olive plants have sprung up around the parent 
stem. The woman has gone mad. She gloats over the ex- 
crescence which has spread and covers her entire hand. She 
exclaims, " Husband, this is a dear, sweet darling, a real love 
of a wart, and I want to engraft it on the hands of all our 
daughters. I had it when I was married ; you vowed to 
protect me, and I claim the right to transfer it to all the 
children. If you do not, I will go to Indiana and get a di- 
vorce. I will dissolve the union between us." v The husband, 
calm and firm, replies, "My dear, I have indulged you in this 
whim about your hand, because I took you for better or for 
worse, and I thought it one of your individual rights which 
I was not at liberty to disturb. But if you propose to trans- 
fer this deformity to the daughters, I say distinctly and de- 
cidedly it cannot be done. This is my prerogative and I 
must exercise it." So I say to slavery propagandists who 
desire to transplant slavery to the Territories, and thus fasten 
it to the daughters of the Republic, " My dears, it cannot be 
done." — Hon. Owen Lovejoy, 18&0. 



THE HELPER BOOK, 



Mr. Chairman, my time is passing away, and I must haste 
on. I want to come to a few things .that x have been under 
discussion during the inchoate condition of the House, whilst 
this hall was echoing with ululations that would have drowned 
the lupine chorus of the Alps, of Helper, and John Brown, 
and incendiarism, the torch of the incendiary and the knife of 
the assassin. One gentleman from Virginia stood up in his 
place, and wanted to know where there was a man that would 
endorse the Helper book. * He wanted such a man, if there 
was one here, to stand up, that he might look upon the trai- 
tor. Mr. Chairman, I, for one, signed the paper recommend- 
ing the circulation of the Helper book. I signed it intelli- 
gently. I was neither engrossed nor abstracted. I did it 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. Y3 

because I wanted to do it ; and now, if the gentleman wants 
to look upon that kind of a traitor, me, me, adsam qui feci, 
in me convertite telum; I did it. I will sign a recommenda- 
tion for the circulation of any book I choose, without asking 
permission of the gentleman from Missouri, (Mr. Clark,) or 
of any other gentleman in the House or out of the House. 
I will sign a paper recommending the circulation of the Bible 
or the Koran, Young's Night Thoughts or Tom Moore's 
Anacreon, Jonathan Edwards on the Decrees, or Tom Paine's 
Age of Reason, just as I please. 

I claim the privilege, as an American citizen, of writing my 
name and recommending the circulation of any and every 
book, without being held amenable to gentlemen upon this 
floor or anywhere else. That, is my answer in regard to it. 
I have no more than that to say. I say nothing about some 
points in the book. I have no doubt that there is considera- 
ble bombast and fustian and violence of language in it, because 
the author was educated in a slave State ; and the rhetoric 
which comes from that quarter is apt to have these char- 
acteristics. Bat the philosophy — the gist of the book — 
is what ? It is the address of a citizen of a slave State 
to his fellow-citizens in regard to the subject of slavery, re- 
commending in substance the organization of a Republican 
party in North Carolina and in all the other slave States. I 
hope to see that done ; and I expect to see it done before 
very long. You may kill Cassius M. Clay, as you threaten 
to do ; but " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
church." You may shed his blood, as you shed the blood of 
my brother On the banks of the Mississippi twenty years 
ago — and what then ? I am here to-day, thank God, to vin- 
dicate the principles baptized in his blood. You may shed 
his blood — and what then ? A RejDublican party will spring 
up in Kentucky and in all the slave States ere long ; and 
these disunionists and gentlemen whom you see so violent now, 
will be displaced by more moderate and — if I may say so with- 
out being offensive — more sensible men. 

I believe in that doctrine. I do not indorse every expres- 
sion in the Helper book, for I have not studied every expres- 
sion ; but the philosophy of the book, the idea of organizing 
a party in the slave States as against slavery, I am in favor 
of, and I expect to see it accomplished. What is the objection 
to the book? The objection is that a citizen of the United 
States, an American citizen, addressed himself to his fellow- 
citizens, in a peaceful way, through the press, and for this 
you find fault with him, and say that he must be hanged, and 
that any man who signed a recommendation for the circulation 



74 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

of his book is a "blighting, blasting, burning, withering 
curse," and must not occujyy that chair.* 

Hon. Owen Lovejoy, 1860. 



SLAVERY MUST DIE, 

I tell you of the slave States that you must emancipate 
your slaves. It belongs to you and not to us. You must 
transform them from slaves into serfs, and give them homes, 
and protect and guard the sanctity of the family.' We shall 
not push you. If you say that you want a quarter of century, 
you can have it; if you want half a century, you can have it. 
But I insist that this system must ultimately be extinguished. 
You who advocate the perpetuity of slavery are like a set of 
madcaps who should place themselves on the top of an ice- 
berg which had disengaged itself from the frozen regions of 
the north, and begun to float downward and downward, 
through the warm climates. The sun shines and melts it ; 
the soft winds blow on and melt it ; the rains descend and 
melt it ; the w~ater ripples round it and melts it ; and then 
these wild visionaries who fancied they could sail an iceberg 
through the tropics, start up and blaspheme sunshine and 
rain, and zephyr ; and, mouthing the heavens, tell Jehovah 
that unless he stops the shining of the sun, and the blowing 
of the winds, and the falling of the rain, they will crumble 
his universe " from turret to foundation stone." 

Do you not think God would feel bad ; and would not the 
archangels tremble at the chivalry ? You may call this ex- 
travagant ; but you can no more perpetuate slavery, and will 
no more dissolve this Union, in order to perpetuate it, than 
you can stop the shining of the sun, or the ripple of the sea, 
the descent of rain, or the blowing of the wind ; ay, no more 
than you can subdue the ocean when it lashes itself into fury 
and dashes its crested mountain billows against the rocks. 
It is as preposterous to think of taking slavery down through 
the civilization of the ages as' it is to think of floating an ice- 
berg through the tropics. It is the order of things. I am 
willing to concede that you can do anything that any equal 
number of men can achieve. I did mean to taunt you about 
Harper's Ferry, but I believe I will not. I am willing to 
concede that you are as brave as other men ; although I do 

* The speech was made during a violent contest for the Speakership 
of the House of Representatives. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 75 

not think you show it by this abusive language ; because 
brave men are always calm and self-possessed. God feels no 
anger, for he knows no fear. 

I say you can do anything that other men can H do. You 
can preserve and perpetuate this system, if any equal number 
of men could do it ; but the stars in their courses are fighting 
against you ; God, in his providence, is fighting against you. 
The universe was established upon the great principle of jus- 
tice and truth ; it may be jostled out of its place for a little 
while, but it will, sooner or later, fall back to its grooves. 
You must sacrifice slavery for the good of your country. 
Do this, and you will have the sympathy, the prayers, and 
the cooperation of the entire nation. 

Refuse or neglect this — refuse to proclaim liberty through 
all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof — and the exodus of 
the slaves will be through the Red Sea. It is a well-known 
physiological, as well as psychological fact, that ancestral 
characteristics reappear after a long interval of years, and 
even of generations, as streams disappear and gush out at a 
distant point. It is also well known that the Saxon blood is 
being infiltrated into the veins of the enslaved. By and by 
some Marion will be found, calling his guerilla troops from 
the swamps and everglades of South Carolina ; and Patrick 
Henry will reappear in the Old Dominion, shouting, as of old, 
"Give us liberty, or give us death!" Then will transpire 
those scenes which troubled the prophetic vision of Jefferson, 
and made him tremble for his country, when he remembered 
that God was just, and that his justice would not sleep for- 
ever, and that every divine attribute would be arrayed upon 
the side of the struggling bondmen. And he justified the 
uprising by saying, the little finger of American slavery was 
thicker than the loins of British despotism. 

Sir, Virginia cannot afibrd, the country cannot afford, to 
continue a practice fraught with so much of peril. It is bet- 
ter to remove the magazine than to be kept evermore in 
dread of a lighted match. The future glory and usefulness 
of this nation cannot be sacrificed to this system of crime. 
The nations of the earth are to be taught by our example. 
The American Republic must repose queen among the nations 
of the earth. Slavery must die. Delenda est Carthago. . 

Hon. Owen JLovejoy, 1860. 



76 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 



THE RISE AND PEOGEESS OF WM. LLOYD GAEEISON. 

It was about the year 1816, that a young man, born in the 
town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, educated in our north- 
ern schools, began to teach the doctrine of ultimate emanci- 
pation, through colonization, to the citizens of Boston. The 
doors of the most magnificent churches in that city flew 
open, as upon oiled hinges, at his approach. His eloquence 
was the theme of every tongue, and his praise sounded 
throughout the land. He was called upon to aid in an at- 
tempt by Benjamin Lundy to establish a paper called the 
" Genius of Emancipation," in Baltimore. He went there as 
an assistant editor of that paper, at the solicitation of the 
south. He there became acquainted with the atrocity of the 
inter-state slave trade. He there saw the workings of slavery 
for himself. He there saw that this scheme of colonization 
was Janus-faced ; that at the South it meant new and in- 
creased guarantees for the perpetuation of slavery, while at 
the North it was held out to the rich and philanthropic as a 
means for the ultimate extinction of slavery. I say he ob- 
served this inter-state slave trade — a trade which was not 
stigmatized as piracy by law, but which was marked with 
every atrocious feature that ever distinguished the foreign 
traffic. More than that, it tears asunder those who have in 
some degree acquired the principles of civilization, and have 
been by it taught to feel more keenly the pangs of forced 
dissolution of family and social ties. 

Not long after this, a ship owned by a northern merchant, 
commanded by a northern captain, and manned by northern 
seamen, was chartered, and shipped a cargo of human beings 
at Baltimore for the New Orleans market. This man saw 
the slaves embarked. He had been invited south to edit a 
colonization paper, and seeing these things himself, he spoke 
of them as they deserved in his paper. He seized the oppor- 
tunity of commencing the attack upon a vessel fitted out in 
his own birth-place, which had engaged in a traffic so harrow- 
ing to his feelings and sensibilities. He printed an article in 
his paper, describing the conduct of these northern men in 
bringing vessels to southern ports to engage in this abomina- 
ble traffic, by which they could grow rich, while their con- 
scientious neighbors, who desired to engage only in the 
legitimate coast-wise trade, could not make a living. And 
what was the result? Why, sir, although the article was 
aimed at individuals in the North alone, it did in fact strike 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 11 

a blow at the domestic slave trade ; and the result was, that 
he was prosecuted civilly and criminally ; he was thrown into 
prison ; he was mulcted in heavy damages in a libel suit ; he 
went to prison, and there remained until the northern colo- 
nizationists paid his fine and set this young liberator free. He 
returned to the North, but the doors of the churches that 
were open to his teachings before, were rusted and fixed on 
their hinges when he went back to denounce the cruelty of 
slavery and the slave trade. He announced his intention to 
speak on Boston Common, as at least one place under the 
broad canopy of heaven in which he could give utterance to 
his conscientious convictions of truth ; but he found that 
northern sentiment was as unwilling to be disturbed upon 
this slavery question, nay, more so, than southern opinions. 
But this man, gentle, loving, peaceable, truthful, just, but in- 
flexible, was resolved not to be put down, North or South, 
and the result was the publication of this paper, the first 
number of which I hold in my hand, and in which he an- 
nounces his intention to prosecute this war upon slavery to 
the end. 

" I am in earnest. I will not equivocate ; I will not excuse ; 
I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." That 
is from the first number of the Liberator, published in 1831, 
by William Lloyd Garrison. It has sometimes seemed to me 
that that man was sent from heaven in answer to the poet's 
prayer, and to meet the time's necessity : 

" We need, metkinks, the prophet heroes still, 
Saints true of life, and martyrs strong of will, 
To tread the land even now, as Xavier trod 
The streets of Groa, barefoot, with his bell 
Proclaiming freedom in the name of God, 
And startling tyrants with the fear of hell." 

Hon. C. B. Sedgioick, 1860. 



NOKTHEKN SENTIMENT ON THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 

Let me assure gentlemen, that they deceive themselves if 
they suppose that there is any real difference in sentiment 
among northern people in relation to this law. All parties 
wink at its evasion, and all sympathy is with the fugitive 
who proves, by a successful flight, that there is enough man 
in him to make an earnest effort for freedom. He who can 
suppress such sympathy, and on the requisition of the mar- 



78 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

shal under the fifth section, attempts to show that he is a 
good citizen by " aiding and assisting in the prompt and 
efficient execution of this law, whenever his services are re- 
quired," ought himself to be a slave. 

The gentleman from Virginia* tried to frighten Republi- 
cans from voting for Governor Pennington for Speaker, by 
saying he was in favor of the law. I presume he is, theoret- 
ically — that he is a law and order man, and has a general 
notion that laws should be obeyed. It would have staggered 
me if I had fully believed the charge ; for I hold that any 
man who really approves the law of 1850, and believes in it, 
is only fit to hold some very mean position in the gift of 
a certain gentleman in sables, whose name should not be 
mentioned to ears polite. But I remember a conversation 
one morning in which he had told me of a chained come of 
twenty-five human beings who, driven by armed and brutal 
drivers, had passed within sight and hearing of this hall that 
morning for a southern market. There was but little said 
between us — language can do no justice to such a subject- 
but I looked into his eye, and I marked the compressed lip 
and heaving chest, which gave evidence to me of a human 
heart within ; and I thought, as I gave him my vote that if 
one of those purchased slaves should escape the chain, and 
the rifle, and the blood-hounds, and the hunters, and the mar- 
shals and commissioners, and, guided by the light which yet 
emanates from the battle-fields of the revolution, cross the 
brave little state of New Jersey, and should make his way 
to that stately and hospitable mansion upon the heights of 
Newark, and should ask for food and shelter, and recite the 
story of his wrongs, I did think and believe, and I do still 
think and believe, that he would interpose the " broad seal" 
of his humanity between him and the fugitive slave bill. I 
think I can hear him repeat, as he blesses the stranger at 
parting, warmed, and fed, and clothed, and having scrip for 
his journey, the hospitable lines of the poet : 

" And stranger is a holy name ; 
Guidance and rest, and food and fire 
In vain he never must require." 

I am not, sir, a believer in the doctrine that a bad, infa- 
mous, and unconstitutional enactment — I cannot call it law — 
should be obeyed until it is repealed. I have not so learned 
the true spirit and theory of free and democratic government. 
No citizen would ever be sustained in any factious resistance 

* Mr. Garnett. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 79 

to just and equal laws upon any light and trivial ground of 
inconvenience, or even unavoidable and unintentional hard- 
ships ; but where a real question of personal and civil rights 
and liberty is involved, or the rights of conscience are in- 
vaded, it is the duty of the citizen to resist. In a question 
of right and conscience the individual citizen is the final 
judge, and not the government or any branch thereof, execu- 
tive, judicial, or legislative. If the encroachments of the 
government are generally tyrannous and oppressive, so that 
they become intolerable, there is the well-established remedy 
in the people — -the right of revolution. If the tyranny does 
not reach the whole state, nor call for that last resort of an 
oppressed people, but only is directed at a sect, a class, or 
even an individual, there is the equally clear and indisputable 
right of peaceful resistance short of revolution. So the 
Friend resists the law compelling him to bear arms, and the 
Catholic the test oaths. By suffering the penalties of an un- 
just and wicked law, public attention is called to injustice, 
and the wholesome truth is taught that 

" Firm endurance wins at last 
More than the sword." 

And so I contend that no citizen in a republic discharges 
his duty who fails to bring an infamous law into public odium 
and disgrace, and steadfastly to resist its encroachments. So 
old Eleazer taught, when he refused to eat the flesh abhorred 
by his conscience and his religion, or even to seem to eat it ; 
and rather than submit to the law which demanded it, went 
manfully to the torment, lest he should bring reproach upon 
his gray hair, and the excellency of his ancient and honora- 
ble years ; and so he died, leaving a notable example of 
courage, not to young men only, but to all generations. This 
was the teaching of Milton, and Hampden, and Sidney, and 
in our own age and land, of Otis and Adams, and the patri- 
ots and martyrs of the revolution. And I regard it as a sign 
of the degeneracy of the times, that the test of good citizen- 
ship in a free government has come to be blind and unresist- 
ing submission to judicial or legislative, any more than to 
executive tyranny; and "if this be treason, make the most 
of it." Hon. Charles JB. /SedgioicJc, 1860. 



80 . THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEK. 



THE NOKTH, NOT THE SOUTH, ASK LEGISLATIVE ALT). 

The Senator from Ohio says that the non-slaveholding 
States desire nothing from this Government, but the records 
of this country sustain precisely the reverse of this statement. 
If the South has, as he alleges, governed this country, she 
has served it with unselfish devotion. You may repeal, ob- 
literate, burn up every law in the whole eleven volumes of 
your laws, and not a human being in my State would be 
affected a single farthing in his industrial pursuits, in his ma- 
terial interests ; and the statement is generally true of every 
State from this to the Rio Grande. I have for fifteen years 
been an humble representative of the people of Georgia in 
your national councils, and no man in Georgia has ever asked 
me, or petitioned you through me or others, as far as I know, 
to seek the aid of your laws in his industrial pursuits ; they 
have sought no protection against competition at home or 
abroad for their industry of any kind. They have toiled in 
their fields and workshops ; in the forest and at their firesides ; 
in their mines and at their forges; in winter and summer, 
without seeking or desiring at your hands any aid to put 
their burden on other people's backs. They have sought no 
exclusive privileges, no protection, no bounties, at your 
hands. They have paid their taxes, fought the battles of 
their country, and claim only at your hands the peaceful en- 
joyment of the fruits of their own honest toil. 

But this has not been the case with the people of the non- 
slaveholding States. From 1789 to this day, a continual, in- 
cessant cry has come up to the Cajritol from them for pro- 
tection, prohibition, and bounties. Give, give, give, has been 
the steady cry of New England ; the middle States of the 
North have been equally urgent. The fisherman has asked 
for bounties on his fish ; the ship-builder for prohibition against 
foreign competition ; the ship-owner for navigation laws ; 
the manufacturer, the artisan, and the worker in mines, has 
clamored for protection against " the pauper labor of Europe." 
The Government has listened, and granted their requests. 
And your statute books are filled with enactments responding 
to their cries. There has been scarcely a blow struck in any 
pursuit throughout the non-slaveholding States — in her mines, 
her forges, her workshops, and her manufactories of all kinds 
— for the last forty years, which has not been fostered and 
invigorated by a bounty, a prohibition, or protection of from 
fifteen to one hundred per cent, on its products. Nineteen 
twentieths of the whole legislation of Congress is for and on 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 81 

account of non-slaveholding States. We have asked none, 
sought none. My business here, and that of my colleagues 
from the South, has been chiefly to mitigate your exactions. 
Day after day are we reminded of the strong declaration of a 
distinguished representative from South Carolina, that neither 
he nor his constituents ever felt the Federal Government ex- 
cept by its exactions. Apart from the protection which the 
very fact of living in a powerful Government gives us against 
foreign aggression, our portion of the benefits of the Federal 
Government are difficult to estimate. We have not generally 
complained of this inequality ; our pursuits were different ; 
we were content that the great interests of the country were 
benefited, though to a large extent at our cost. As country- 
men, we listened kindly to your petitions to protect you 
against your foreign competitors. We had none ; we had 
not been taught to consider ourselves as aliens in your part 
of a common country. This has changed. The fault lies not 
at our door. — Hon. R,obert Toombs, 1860. 



DEED S00TT DECISION. 

Sir, if there ever was a "holding" on earth that would war- 
rant a man in saying that he held it in utter contempt, it is 
what is called the Bred Scott decision ; so manifestly a 
usurpation of power, so manifestly done in order to give a 
bias to political action, that no man, though he be a fool, can 
fail to see it. 

What was the case ? An old negro, whom age had ren- 
dered valueless, happens to fall in the way of the politicians 
at a period when it was thought exceedingly desirable that 
the question of congressional authority over slavery in the 
Territories shall be tried, and Dred Scott prosecutes foT his 
liberty in the Federal courts ; and, by the way, after he had 
prosecuted his case through, and his liberty was denied him 
by the, court, I believe, the very next day, the master gave 
him his liberty. He had served the purposes of the politi- 
cians, and they ought to have given him a pension for life for 
having been the John Doe of the transaction. I do not know 
of what authority the case may be, but its getting-up looks to 
me exceedingly suspicious. There was a concurrence of cir- 
cumstances that very rarely happen of themselves. Old 
Dred Scott sued for his freedom, and a plea was put in that 
he, being a descendant of an African, and his ancestors 
slaves, he could not sue in that court ; he had no right to be 



82 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

there, and had no standing there. The court go on and argue 
themselves into the belief that either a man may be so mon- 
strously low, or the court itself so monstrously high, that he 
cannot sue in its presence for his rights. I believe this is the 
first nation on God's earth that ever placed any mortal man, 
or anybody bearing the human form, on so low a level, or 
any court on so high a one as that. But let this go. Dred 
Scott brought his suit. The plea in abatement was demurred 
to ; the question >arose upon that demurrer, and a majority 
of the court decided that Dred Scott, being a negro, a de- 
scendant of an African, and his ancestors having been slaves, 
he could not maintain a suit in that court, because he was not 
a citizen under the law. ISTow, sir, I ask every lawyer here, 
was not there an end of the case ? In the name of Heaven, 
Judge Taney, what did you, retain it for any longer? You 
said Dred Scott could not sue ; he could not obtain his lib- 
erty ; he was out of court ; and what further had you to do 
with all the questions that you say were involved in that 
suit? Upon every principle of adjudication, you ought not 
to have gone further. E"o court has ever held more solemnly 
than the Federal courts that they will not go on to decide 
any more than is before the court ; and every lawyer knows 
that if they do, all they say more is mere talk, and though 
said by judges in a court house, has just as much operation 
and effect as if it had been said by a horse-dealer in a bar- 
room, and no more. And yet we are told that we must follow 
the dicta of these packed judges — for they were jacked, a 
majority of them interested too, in the very question to be 
decided. I do not want to go back to see what Jefferson 
and others said about it. I know the nature of man. I 
know, as they know/ that to arm this judiciary with the 
power, not only to decide questions between private individ- 
uals, but to affect the legislation of the nation, to affect the 
action of your President, to affect the coordinate branches 
of this Government, is a fatal heresy, that, if persisted in by 
a majority of the people, cannot result in any other than an 
utter consolidated despotism; and I am amazed tha^fc men 
who have had their eyes open, and who have held to other 
doctrines in better days, should, for any temporary purpose, 
heave overboard, and bury in the deep sea, the sheet-anchor 
of the liberties of the nation. — Hon. Benjamin Wade, 1860. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 83 



EESPQNSE TO THREAT 



Me. Chairman, it has been declared here, by some of the 
ablest speakers from the South, that the success of our party 
— which seeks to do nothing that may not be clearly dune 
within the protection and under the authority of the Consti- 
tution which they profess to admire and venerate — will com- 
pel them to withdraw from this Union of sovereign States. 
I have no desire to discuss a statement which always when 
made assumes the attitude of a threat. But do you not see, 
gentlemen, that to make such a threat is to render certain of 
success, beyond the peradventure of defeat, the party you 
threaten? The Republican party proposes to ascertain 
whether the Union is not strong enough to sustain an admin- 
istration which will rest upon the theory of our Constitution, 
and upon the foundation which the fathers laid. 

You may shatter, if you can, this fair fabric of our free- 
dom ; you may make desolate the temple, and strike down 
the statue ; but the terrible responsibility shall rest upon 
yourselves. 

In the earlier ages of the world, within one of the old 
temples of Memnon, a colossal statue had been erected ; and 
it was said that daily, in the morning, as the rays of the sun 
fell upon the image, sounds of sweet music went from it to 
inspirit and to encourage the votaries at the shrine. Bat an 
Egyptian king caused the statue to be shattered and the music 
to be hushed, that he might find whence the strains proceed- 
ed, and whether the priests within the temple had not de- 
ceived the people. Sir, upon this land our fathers reared 
their temple, and within it the colossal statue of liberty has 
stood. Not in the morning alone, but at high noon and at 
set of sun, day after day, sounds of heavenly harmony have 
gone from it, calling upon the oppressed and down-trodden 
to come and to be free. Rude hands have been laid upon 
that temple ; hard southern blows have fallen upon the statue ; 
but when, if ever, the power shall come that will shatter the 
edifice and lay the colossal image low, in order that the mystery 
may be revealed, it will be found, I believe, in the providence 
of God, that other hands will rebuild and reconsecrate them 
both ; but no Washington, nor Jefferson, nor Madison, nor 
Hamilton, nor such like artificers, will be commissioned for 
the work, until that institution, which dishonors man and de- 
bases labor and steals from the stooping brow the sweat 
which should earn his bread, shall be forever overthrown. 

Son. Thomas D. Eliot, 1860. 



84 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



, THE DEMANDS OF THE PEO-SLAVEEY PAETY. 

The question recurs: what will satisfy the pro-slavery 
party ? Simply this ; we must not only let them alone, but 
we must, somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. 
This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have 
been trying so to convince them, from the very beginning of 
our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms 
and speeches, we have constantly protested our purpose to 
let^.them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince 
them. Alike unavailing is the fact that they have never de- 
tected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, 
what will convince them ? This, and this only : cease to call 
slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this 
must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. 
Silence will not be tolerated ; we must place ourselves 
avowedly with them. Douglas's new sedition law must be 
enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery 
is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits or 
in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves 
with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free State 
Constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected 
from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease 
to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. Holding 
as they do that slavery is morally right and socially elevat- 
ing, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition 
of it as a legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this, on any ground save 
our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all 
words, acts, laws and constitutions against it are themselves 
wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is 
right, we cannot justly object to its nationality — its univer- 
sality ; if it is wrong they cannot justly insist upon its exten- 
sion, its enlargement. All they ask we would readily grant 
if we thought slavery right ; all we ask they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. Can we cast our votes with 
their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, 
social and political responsibilities, can we do this ? 
jih Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it 
llone where it is, because so much is due to the necessity 
arising from its actual presence in the nation ; but can we, 
while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the 
national Territories, -and to overrun us here, in these free 
States ? 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 85 

If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand- by our 
duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none 
of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so indus- 
triously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping 
for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, 
vain as the search for one who should be neither a living nor 
a dead man — contrivances such as a policy of "don't care" 
on a question about which all true men do care — Union ap- 
peals, beseeching true Union men to yield to disunionists, 
reversing the divine rule, and calling not the sinners but the 
righteous to repentance — invocations of Washington, im- 
ploring men to unsay what Washington said and undo what 
Washington did. 

Neither let us be frightened from our duty by false accu- 
sations, nor by menaces of destruction to the government or 
of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that Right 
makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do 
our duty, as we understand it. 

Hon. Abraham Lincoln, 1860. 



A PATENT GOSPEL 



Me. Chairman, the justification of slavery is sometimes 
placed on the ground of the inferiority of the enslaved race. 
jSTow, sir, we may concede, as a matter of fact, that it is in- 
ferior; but does it follow, therefore, that it is right to en- 
slave a man, simply because he is inferior? This, to me, is a 
most abhorrent doctrine. It would place the weak every- 
where at the mercy of the strong ; it would place the poor at 
the mercy of the rich ; it would place those that are deficient 
in intellect at the mercy of those that are gifted in mental 
endowment. The principle of enslaving human beings be- 
cause they are inferior is this : If a man is a cripple, trip him 
up ; if he is old and weak, and bowed with the weight of 
years, strike him, for he cannot strike back ; if idiotic, take 
advantage of him ; and if a child, deceive him. This, sir, is 
the doctrine of devils ; and there is no place in the universe, 
outside of hell, where the practice' and prevalence of such 
doctrines would not be a disgrace. If the strong of the 
earth are to enslave the weak, angels would be justified in 
enslaving men, because they are superior ; and archangels in 
turn would be justified in subjugating those who are inferior 
in intellect and position ; and the principle carried out would 
transform Jehovah into an infinite Juggernaut, rolling the 



86 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

huge wheels of his omnipotence amid the crushed and 
mangled bodies of human beings, on the plea that he was 
infinitely superior and that they were an inferior race. 

Another ground upon which it is attempted to justify 
slaveholding, is, that it is a mode of imparting Christianity 
and civilization to the slaves. But the truth is, that the 
practice of slaveholding has a powerful tendency to drag 
communities back to barbarism. It is actually having that 
effect upon the slave States of this Union ; and were it not 
for the Christian women that have gone from free States and 
intermarried in the slave States ; and were it not for those 
noble women in the slave States that preserve womenly 
purity and Christianity, in spite of the unhappy influences of 
slaveholding, the slave States to-day would be as far back in 
barbarism as the State of Mexico. 

Sir, if you step into the Smithsonian Institute, or into the 
Patent Office, you will find implements of husbandry imported 
from Japan and China, showing just about the same devel- 
opment in civilization as the implements that you find on the 
plantations. Now, sir, the truth is, that the practice of slave- 
holding drags slaveholding communities further below the 
plane of the Christian civilization of the age, than the civili- 
zation which the slave receives elevates him above the plane 
of heathenism by being held in these Christian communities. 
Sir, how do they impart civilization and Christianity ? It is 
a strange mode of Christianizing a race to turn them over 
into brutism without any legal marriage. Among the four 
million slaves in this country, there is not a single husband 
or wife. There is not legally a single father or child. There 
is not a single home or hearthstone among these four millions. 
And you propose to civilize and Christianize a people without 
giving them homes, without allowing them the conjugal and 
parental relations, and without having those relations sanc- 
tioned and protected by law. 

Mr. Chairman, no community can make one step of pro- 
gress in civilizing a race till you give them homes ; till you 
protect the sanctity of the home, as we hold it should be 
protected in regard to those Mormons on the plains of Utah. 

How are you going to Christianize men whom you turn 
out to herd together like the buffaloes that roam upon the 
Western prairies? Christianizing them, sir? Christianizing 
them by a new process ! The slave States have a right to 
an exclusive patent for it. — Hon. Owen Lovejoy, 1860. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 87 



THE PEACEFUL REMEDY. 

Theee is one notable feature in the attitude of the South. 
The cry of disunion conies, not from those who suffer most 
from Northern outrage, but from those who suffer least. It 
comes from South Carolina and Georgia and Alabama and 
Mississippi, whose slave property is rendered comparatively se- 
cure by the intervention of other slaveholding States between 
them and the free States, and not from Delaware, and Mary- 
land, and Virginia, and Kentucky, and Tennessee, and Missouri, 
which lose a hundred slaves by abolition thieves where the 
first-named States lose one. Why are not the States that 
suffer most, loudest in their cry for disunion? It is /because 
their position enables them to see more distinctly than you 
do, at a distance, the fatal and instant effects of such a step. 
As imperfect as the protection which the Constitution and 
laws give to their property undoubtedly is, it is better than 
none. They do not think it wise to place themselves in a 
position to have the John Browns of the North let loose 
upon them, with no other restraints than the laws of war 
between independent nations construed by reckless fanatics. 
They prefer to fight the abolitionists, if fight they, must, 
within the Union, where their adversaries are somewhat 
restrained by constitutional and legal obligations. No, sir; 
Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia do not intend to become 
the theatre of desolating wars between the North and South; 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri do not intend that their 
peaceful channels of commerce shall become rivers of blood 
to gratify the ambition of South Carolina and Alabama, who 
at a remote distance from present danger cry out disunion. 

The South has all along had a peaceful remedy and has it 
still. What ought to have been the preventive, must now be 
the remedy. Should Lincoln, in November next, secure a 
majority of the electors, patriotic men, North and South, 
without waiting for his inauguration, irrespective of party 
lines and throwing aside all minor considerations, must band 
together for the triple purpose of preventing any attempt to 
break up the Union, checking the Republican party while in 
the ascendant, and expelling them from power at the next 
election. Let the toast of General Jackson, " The Federal 
Union — it must be preserved," become the motto of the 
party, while strict construction of the Constitution and a 
jealous regard for the rights of the States shall be its dis- 
tinguishing principle and unwavering, practice. Let the Con- 
stitutional principle be adopted of no legislation by Congress 



88 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

over the Territories, or throw aside altogether the mischiev- 
ous issues in relation to them, of no practical utility, gotten 
up by demagogues and disunionists, as means of accomplishing 
their own selfish ends. Let them inflexibly refuse to support, 
for any Federal or State office, any man who talks of dis- 
union on the one hand or " irrepressible conflict between 
freedom and slavery" on the other. Throw aside all party 
leaders except such as " keep step to the music of the Union" 
and are prepared to battle for State rights under its banner. 

Be this your " platform ;" let the South rally upon it as one 
man, and I would pledge all but my life, that at least one-half 
of the North will join you in driving from power the reckless 
assailants of your rights and your institutions. 

How much more hopeful and cheering is a prospect like 
this than the contemplation of standing armies, grinding taxes, 
ruined agriculture, prostrate commerce, bloody battles, rav- 
aged countries, and sacked cities. This continent, like the 
Eastern world, is destined to have its " Northern hives." 
Shall its swarms.be repressed by the strong hand of the 
States united, or are they, by a dissolution of the Union, to 
be let loose on our South, like the Gcths and Vandals upon 
Southern Europe? True, their blood might, in that event, 
fertilize your desolated fields, but your institutions, like those 
of the Roman Empire, would sink to rise no more. 

Hon. Amos Kendall, 1860. 



TRIBUTE TO THE SUPREME COURT. 

May it please your honors, this may be the last time that 
this Court will sit in peaceful judgment on a Constitution ac- 
knowledged and obeyed by all. God, in his providence, and 
for our sins, may, in his inscrutable wisdom, suffer the folly 
and wickedness of this generation to destroy the fairest, no- 
blest fabric of constitutional freedom ever erected by man. Its 
whole history, fom the first moment of its operation even to 
the present hour, bears evidence of its unrivalled excellence. 
Our country, our whole country, has, from the first, pros- 
pered under it, and because of it, with a rapidity, and in a 
manner, before or since, unknown to the nations. That pros- 
perity vindicates the wisdom and patriotism of its good and 
great founders. Is this prosperity now to cease ? Is it now 
to be dashed to the earth ? Are the hopes of civilized man 
the world over, now to be blasted ? Are we to become the 
jest, the scorn, the detestation of the people of the earth ? 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 89 

Are all memory and reverence for the great dead, whom liv- 
ing we admired and adored, to be now forgotten ? Is all 
gratitude for the mighty, trying struggles of our fathers now- 
to end ? Are the warnings, the parting warnings of the 
peerless man of all this world, now to be disregarded and 
despised? Is the country of Washington, consecrated by 
his valor, wisdom, and virtue, to freedom and peace, now to 
be converted into a wild scene of disorder, fraternal strife, 
bloodshed, war ? May heaven in its mercy forbid ! May it 
stay the arm of the madman, arrest it in mid career before it 
strikes the fatal, parricidal blow. May it give time for reason 
and patriotism to resume their sway ! May it remove the 
delusions of the misguided, strengthen the efforts of the pa- 
triotic, impart heavenly fire to the eloquence of the faithful 
statesman ; silence, by the universal voice of the good and 
true men of the nation, the utterances of treason now tainting 
the air and shocking the ear of patriotism, and the whinings 
of imbecility now discouraging and sickening the honest pub- 
he heart! May it, above all, rekindle that fraternal love 
which bound us together by ties stronger, infinitely stronger, 
than any which mere government can create, during the 
whole of our Revolutionary struggle, and has since cheered 
us on in our pathway to the power and renown which have 
made us, until now, the wonder and admiration of the worM ! 
But if all shall fail us, and ruin come; if chaos, worse liiuu 
chaos, is to be our fate, the spirits of those who have de- 
parted, and the survivors who have administered justice in 
this tribunal, in the general wreck and wretchedness that 
will ensue, will be left this consolation : that their recorded 
judgments, now, thank God, the rich inheritance of the 
world, and beyond the spoiler's reach, will, till time shall be 
no more, testify to the spotless integrity, the unsurpassed 
wisdom, the ever bright patriotism, of the men who, from 
the first, have served their country in this temple, sacred to 
justice and duty, and to the matchless wisdom of our fathers, 
who bequeathed it and commended it to the perpetual rever- 
ence and support of their sons, and remain a never dying dis- 
honor and reproach to the sons who shall have plotted or 
permitted its destruction. — -Hon. JReverdy Johnson, 1860. 



THE PRICE OF PEACE 



What is the use of our discussing on this side the cham- 
ber, what we would be satisfied with, when nothing has been 
offered us, and when we do not believe that we will be per- 



90 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

mitted to retain even that which we now have ? If the two 
senators from New York, the senator from Ohio, the two 
senators from Illinois, the senator from New Hampshire, the 
senators from Maine, and others, who are regarded as repre- 
sentative men ; who have denied that, by the constitution of 
the United States, slaves are recognized as property ; who 
have urged and advocated those acts which we regard as 
aggressive on the part of the people ; — if they will rise here 
and say in their places that they desire to propose amend- 
ments to the constitution and beg that we will vote for them; 
that they will, in good faith, go to their respective constitu- 
encies and urge the ratification ; that they believe, if these 
Gulf States will suspend their action, that these amendments 
will be ratified and carried out ; that they will cease preach- 
ing "the irrepressible conflict ;" and if thef will assure us 
that abolition societies shall be abolished ; that abolition 
presses shall be suppressed ; that abolition speeches shall no 
longer be made ; that we shall have peace and quiet ; that we 
shall not be called cut-throats, and pirates, and murderers ; 
that our women shall not be slandered ; these things being 
said in good faith, the senators begging that we will stay our 
hand until an honest effort can be made, I believe that there 
is a prospect of giving them a fair consideration. 

Unless the newspapers have given a false account of the 
fact, your President elect, a few months before his nomina- 
tion, was a kind of abolition lecturer, speaking at one hun- 
dred dollars a lecture, throughout the country, exciting the 
people against us. We say to the northern States : You shall 
not — that is the word I choose to use, and I reflect the feel- 
ing and determination of the people I represent when I use 
it — you shall not permit men to excite your citizens to make 
John Brown raids, or bring fire and strychnine within the 
limits of the State to which I owe my allegiance. You shall 
not publish newspapers and pamphlets to excite our slaves to 
insurrection. You shall not publish newspapers and pamph- 
lets to excite the non-slaveholders against the slaveholder, or 
the slaveholders against the non-slaveholders. We will have 
peace ; and if you do not offer it to us, we will quietly with- 
draw from the Union and establish a government for our- 
selves, as we have a right under the constitutional compact 
to do ; and if you then persist in your aggressions, we will 
leave it to the sovereign States to settle that question, 

" Where tlie battle's wreck lies thickest, 
And death's brief pang is quickest." 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 91 

And when you laugh at these impotent threats, as you re- 
gard them, I tell you that cotton is king ! 

Hon. Louis T. Wig fall, 1860. 



THE CORDON OF FEEE STATES. 

The great ground of complaint has narrowed itself down 
to this: that, as a people, we desire to surround the slave 
States with a cordon of free States, and thereby destroy the 
institution of slavery : to treat it like a scorpion girt by fire. 
Suppose that circling slavery with a cordon of free States 
were a cause of separation, and therefore war with us ; is it 
not just as much so with anybody else ? It is no greater 
crime for a Massachusetts man or an Oregon man to circle, 
girdle, and thereby kill slavery, than for a Frenchman, or an 
Englishman, or a Mexican. It is as much a cause of war 
against France, or England, or Mexico, as against us. 

Circle slavery with a cordon of free States ! Why, if I 
read history and observe geography rightly, it is so girdled 
now. Which way can slavery extend itself that it does not 
encroach upon the soil of freedom ? Has the senator thought 
of that ? It cannot go ISTorth, though it is trying very hard. 
It cannot go into Kansas, though it made a convulsive effort, 
mistaking a spasm for strength. It cannot go South, because, 
amid the degradation and civil war and peonage of Mexico, 
if there be one thing under heaven they hate worse than an- 
other, it is African slavery. It cannot reach the islands of 
the sea, for they are under the shadow of France, that guards 
their shores against such infectious approach. 

Nay, more. We of the northern and western States are 
the only allies you have got in the world. It is to us that, in 
the hour of your extremest trial, you are to look for sympa- 
thy, for succor, for support. You have with us what you. 
call a league ; what you call a compact ; what we call a 
united government, by which we are bound, in some points 
of view, to recognize your institution, and to aiford you sup- 
port in the hour of your danger. Why, sir, if your slaves 
revolt, if there be among you domestic insurrection — God 
grant the hour may never come ! — we are called upon by our 
constitutional obligation to march to your support ; and, 
though there be nothing worse than to fight in a servile war, 
unless it be to suffer in one, we of the ISTorth, when that 
hour shall arrive, will march to sustain you, our brethren, our 
kindred, the people of our race, with all our power. 



92 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Again : we are required by the constitution to protect you 
against the escape of your slaves through our Territories, to 
return them, and to return them in violation of common law, 
and against the principles of international relations acknowl- 
edged by the whole civilized world. Would France do 
that ? Would Mexico do that ? Would England do that ? 
Would the Czar of Russia do that? No, sir. It is to us, 
and to us alone, that you are to look for whatever of safety, 
of succor, of sympathy you can find in the whole world, and 
— I had well nigh said-4n the whole universe. 

Hon. E. D. Baker, 1861. 



A FREE PKESS 



Mr. President : do men propose to us seriously that we 
shall stop the right of free discussion ; that we shall limit 
the free press ; that we shall restrain the expression of free 
opinion everywhere, on all subjects, and at all times? Why, 
sir, in this land, if there be a man base enough, unreflecting 
enough, to blaspheme the Maker that made him, or the Sa- 
viour that died for him, we have no power to stop him. If 
there be the most bitter, unjust and vehement denunciation 
upon all the principles of morality and goodness, on which 
human society is based, and on which it may most securely 
stand, we have, for great and over-ruling reasons connected 
with liberty itself, no power to restrain it. Private charac- 
ter, public service, individual relations — neither these, nor 
age, nor sex, can be, in the nature of our government, exempt 
from that liability to attack. And, sir, shall gentlemen com- 
plain that slavery is not made an exception to that general 
rule ? I hope they will see at once, that the attempt to re- 
quire us to do for them what we cannot do for ourselves is 
unjust and cruel in the highest degree. 

Sir, the liberty of the press is the highest safeguard to all 
free government. Ours could not exist without it. It" is 
like a great, exulting and abounding river. It is fed by the 
dews of heaven, which distil their sweetest drops to form it. 
It gushes from the rill, as it breaks from the deep caverns of 
the earth. It is augmented by a thousand affluents, that dash 
from the mountain top, to separate again into a thousand 
bounteous and irrigating streams around. On its broad 
bosom it bears a thousand barks. There genius spreads its 
purpling sail. There poetry dips its silver oar. There art, 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 93 

invention, discovery, science, morality, religion, may safely 
and securely float. It wanders through every land. It is a 
genial, cordial source of thought and inspiration, wherever it 
touches, whatever it surrounds. Upon its borders, there 
grows every flower of grace, and every fruit of truth. Sir, I 
am not here to deny that that river sometimes oversteps its 
bounds. I am not here to deny that that stream sometimes be- 
comes a dangerous torrent, and destroys towns and cities upon 
its bank. But I am here to say that, 7 without it, civilization, 
humanity, government, all that makes society itself, would 
disappear, and the world would return to its ancient barbar- 
ism. Sir, if that were possible, though but for a moment, 
civilization would roll the wheels of its car backward for 
two thousand years, and the fine conception of the poet 
would be realized : 

" As one by one, in dread Medea's train, 
Star after star fades off the ethereal plain, 
Tims at her fell approach and sedret might 
Art after art goes out, and all is night. 
Philosophy, that leaned on heaven before, 
Sinks to her second cause, and is no more. 
Eeligion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, 
And, unawares, morality expires." 

Sir, we will not risk these consequences, even for slavery ; 
we will not risk these consequences even for union ; we will 
not risk these consequences to avoid that civil war with 
which you threaten us ; — that war which you announce as* 
deadly, and which you declare to be inevitable. 

Hon. JEJ. D. Baker, 1861. 



THE GARBIS01T0F SUMTEK. 

Is there any point of pride which prevents us from with- 
drawing that garrison ? I have heard it said by a gallant 
gentleman, to whom I make no special reference, that the 
great objection was an unwillingness to lower the flag. To 
lower the flag ! Under what circumstances ? Does any 
man's courage impel him to stand boldly forth, to take the 
life of his brethren ? Does any man insist on going to the 
open field with deadly weapons, to fight his brother on a 
question of courage ? There is no point of pride. These 
are your brethren ; and they have shed as much glory upon 
that flag as any equal number of men in the Union. They 
are the men, and that is the locality, where the first Union 



94 THE PATKIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

flag was unfurled, and where was fought a gallant battle be- 
fore our independence was declared — not the flag with thir- 
teen stripes and thirty-three stars, but a flag with the cross 
of St. George, and the long stripes running through it. It 
was when the gallant Moultrie took the British Fort Johnson 
that the Union flag flew in the air for the first time; and that 
was in October, 1775. When he threw up a temporary bat- 
tery with palmetto logs and sand, upon the site called Fort 
Moultrie, that fort was assailed by the British fleet, and bom- 
barded until the old logs, clinging with stern tenacity to the 
enemy that assailed them, were filled with balls. But the 
flag still floated there, and though many bled, the garrison 
conquered. Those old logs are gone; the corroding current 
is even taking away the site where Fort Moultrie stood ; the 
gallant men who held it now mingle with the earth ; but their 
memories live in the hearts of a gallant people, and their 
sons yet live, and are ready to bleed and to die for the cause 
in which their fathers triumphed. Glorious are the memo- 
ries clinging around that old fort, which now for the first 
time has been abandoned — abandoned, not even in the pres- 
ence of a foe, but under the imaginings that a foe might 
come ; and guns have been spiked and carriages burned where 
the band of Moultrie bled, and, with an insufficient arma- 
ment, repelled the common foe of all the colonies. Her an- 
cient history compares proudly with the present. 

Can there, then, be a point of pride upon so sacred a soil 
as this, where the blood of the fathers cries to Heaven against 
civil war ? Can there be a point of pride against laying upon 
that sacred soil to-day the flag for which our fathers died ? 
My pride, senators, is different. My pride is that that flag 
shall not be set between contending brothers; and that, 
when it shall no longer be the common flag of the country, 
it shall be folded up and hid away like a vesture no longer 
used ; that it shall be kept as a sacred memento of the past, 
to which each of us can make a pilgrimage, and remember 
the glorious days in which we were born. 

Hon. Jefferson Davis> 1861. 



THE CAUSES OF SEPAEATIOST . 

I caee not to read from your platform ; I care not to read 
from the speeches of your President elect. You know them 
as I do ; and the man who is regarded by the country as the 
directing intellect of the party to which he belongs — the 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 95 

Senator from New York — has, with less harshness of expres- 
sion than others, but with more of method, indicated this 
same purpose of deadly hostility in every form in which it 
could be portrayed. Did we unite with you in order that 
the powers of the general government should be used for 
destroying our domestic institutions ? Do you believe that 
now, in our increased and increasing commercial and physi- 
cal power, we will consent to remain united to a Govern- 
ment exercised for such a purpose as this ? 

What boots it to tell me that no direct act of aggression 
will be made ? I prefer direct to indirect hostile measures 
which will produce the same result, as I prefer an open to a 
secret foe. Is there a Senator upon the other side who will 
agree to-day that we shall have equal enjoyment of the Ter- 
ritories of the United States ? Is there oife who will deny 
that we have equally paid in their purchase, and equally bled 
in their acquisition by war ? -Then, is this the observance of 
your compact ? Whose is the fault, if the Union be dis- 
solved ? If we are not equals, this is not the Union to which 
we Avere pledged ; this is not the Constitution you have 
sworn to maintain, nor this the Government we are bound to 
support. 

I have heard with some surprise, for it seemed to me idle, 
the repetition of the assertion heretofore made, that the cause 
of the separation was the election of Mr. Lincoln. The man 
was nothing, save as he was the representative of opinions, 
of a policy, of purposes, of power, to inflict upon us those 
wrongs to which freemen never tamely submit. 

Senators, the time is near at hand when the places' which 
have known us as colleagues laboring together can know us 
in that relation no more forever. I have striven unsuccess- 
fully to avert the catastrophe which now impends over the 
country; and for the few days which I remain, I am willing 
to labor in order that the catastrophe shall be as little as pos- 
sible destructive to public peace and prosperity. If you de- 
sire at this last moment to avert civil war, so be it ; it is bet- 
ter so. If you will but allow us to separate from you 
peaceably, since we cannot live peaceably together — to leave 
with the rights we had before we were united, since we can- 
not enjoy them in the Union — then there are many relations 
which may still subsist between us, drawn from the associa- 
tions of our struggles from the Revolutionary era to the 
present day, which may be beneficial to you, as well as to us. 

If you will not have it thus ; if in the pride of power, if 
in contempt of reason and reliance upon force, you say w T e 
shall not go, but shall remain as subjects to you, then, gen- 



96 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

tlemen of the North, a war is to be inaugurated, the like of 
which men have not seen. Sufficiently numerous on both 
sides, in close contact, with only imaginary lines of division 
and with many means of approach, both parties, sustained 
by productive sections, the people of which will give freely, 
both of money and store, will prolong and multiply conflicts 
indefinitely ; and masses of men, sacrificed to the demon of 
civil war, will furnish hecatombs, such as the recent campaign 
in Italy did not offer. At the end of all this, what will you 
have effected ? Destruction upon both sides, subjugation 
upon neither ; a treaty of peace leaving both torn and bleed- 
ing ; the wail of the w r idow and the cry of the orphan sub- 
stituted for those peaceful notes of domestic happiness that 
now prevail throughout the land ; — and then you will agree 
that each is to pursue his separate course as best he may. 
This is to be the end of war. 

Is there wisdom, is there patriotism in the land ? If so, 
easy must .be the solution of this question. If not, then Mis- 
sissippi's gallant sons will stand like a wall of fire around 
their State ; and I go hence, not in hostility to you, but in 
love and allegiance to her, to take my place among them, be 
it for good or for evil. — Hon. Jefferson Davis, 1861. 



THE ATTITUDE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

Why, I ask, the present dread of disunion ? Is it the 
election, in a perfectly constitutional mode, of a citizen as 
President, who is thought to hold principles fatal to Southern 
rights ? Suppose he does ; will he not be impotent for harm ? 
His powers for any such purpose are subordinate to those of 
Congress, and the action of both, if illegal, can be revised 
and annulled by a patriotic judiciary which has ever shown 
itself capable and willing to uphold, with even hand, the 
rights of all the States. 

But is the President elect so hostile to southern rights ? 
I do not deem it necessary or advisable, in the present excited 
state of the South, to hunt up what he may have said, in an 
electioneering canvass. One thing I know, the South did not 
always view him as especially dangerous, for certainly they 
did not pursue the course the best, if not the only one, even 
promising to defeat his election. A speech in the Senate that 
became at once a Southern and a Northern campaign docu- 
ment, used to defeat in the one section Judge Douglas, and 
in the other to promote the cause of Mr. Lincoln, was made 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 97 

by Mr. Benjamin, in May, 1 860, with his specious ability and 
pleasing eloquence. That gentleman, on that occasion, en- 
deavored to show that Mr. Lincoln was more conservative 
and true to the South than Mr. Douglas. 

Referring to the senatorial contest which they had recently 
had in Illinois, he said what I read to you : " In that contest 
the two candidates for the Senate of the United States in the 
State of Illinois, went before their people. They agreed to 
discuss the issues ; they put questions to each other for an- 
swer ; and I must say here, for I must be just to all, that I 
have been surprised in the examination that I made again, 
within the last few days, of this discussion between Mr. Lin- 
coln and Mr. Douglas, to find that Mr. Lincoln is afar more 
conservative man, unless he has since changed his opinions, 
than I had supposed him to be." 

The distinguished Senator evidently did not then think, he 
certainly did not even intimate, that the opinions of the Pres- 
ident elect were so unconstitutional and violative of Southern 
rights as to justify revolution on the contingency of his elec- 
tion. On the contrary, they were produced and relied upon 
to satisfy the South that he would be truer to her than Doug- 
las. Anfl. yet, who supposes that if the latter had been the 
choice of the people, the present troubles could or would 
have been produced ? 

Nor, in truth, is there anything in his opinions so clearly 
wrong as to cause alarm. They are, in some particulars, in 
my judgment, unsound and mischievous, but not so mischiev- 
ous as to warrant serious apprehension, or — before he is even 
permitted to explain his actual policy — to justify or excuse rev- 
olution — the destruction of the Government. Singular idea, 
that because possibly he may advise and be able to carry 
measures calculated to destroy it, that the safety and duty 
of the South warrant them in destroying it themselves, in 
advance. How men, loyal to the Union and anxious for its 
preservation, can so reason, is incomprehensible. There are, 
no doubt, in some States, enemies of the Government, life-long 
enemies, resolved at all hazards to effect its ruin, and who 
have been plotting it for years. But these are not to be 
found in Maryland. Here, thank God, such disloyalty never 
obtained even a foothold. — Hon. Meverdy Johnson, 1861. 



98 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE PROSPECT OF ADJUSTMENT. 

We may differ now as to the exact course to' be pursued, 
but we differ only as to the best means of accomplishing a 
common purpose — the Union's safety. In this particular I 
have differed, and still perhaps differ, with friends whose 
fealty to the Union is as strong and abiding as it can be in 
any American heart. Let us, therefore, casting aside all prior 
differences, mere party controversies, unite together as- a 
band of brothers, and in good faith and with unflinching 
firmness, rally around our noble State ; noble in her institu- 
tions ; noble in her Revolutionary history ; noble in the great 
fame of her illustrious dead; and resolve by all just and hon- 
orable means, by any fair and equitable adjustment of sec- 
tional controversies, to assist her in efforts to terminate the 
sad, the dreadful strife which now imperils all we hold dear. 
Finally, is all hope lost— all remedy gone ? I think not. 

Even Massachusetts, so much given of late to sentimental 
politics and mischievous philanthropy, will be glad to adjust 
on fair terms. Of this I feel satisfied. A reaction of opinion 
has evidently begun therje. And who is not desirous to re- 
tain Massachusetts ? Who can, without pain, meditate her 
possible loss to the Union? The first blood in our first 
mighty conflict was shed on her soil, and the first blow there 
struck for and in defense of the rights of all. In the Senate 
and in the field, throughout that great period, her sons were 
among the foremost in stirring eloquence, cheerful sacrifices 
and matchless daring. Their bones almost literally whitened 
the soil of every State, and the Stripes and Stars, when in 
their hands, were ever the certain pledge of victory or death. 
Who would surrender Concord, Lexington, Bunker Hill ? 

South Carolina, too. Who is willing to part with her ? 
Her great names, during the same classic period, won for her 
and for all an undying fame. Her Moultries, Pinckneys, 
Rutledges, Haynes, Marions, Lawrences, do not belong to 
her alone — they are as much ours as hers ; as the fame of 
Washington is as much the property and pride of the world 
as of Virginia. She, too, is astray now, as she was once be- 
fore. She now thinks herself out of the Union. But there is 
a common tie, however, for a moment imperceptible and in- 
operative, that still makes us hers and hers ours. The tie of 
blood, of language, of religion, of love, of constitutional free- 
dom, of a common ancestry, who in battle and in council were 
ever a band of brothers— deliberating, fighting, dying, for our 
joint liberty and happiness. 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 99 

Time, time, therefore, that great pacificator, can only be 
necessary to arouse all to duty — to unite us all — to bring us 
back to each other "to renewed embraces and increased af- 
fection." 

I believe, yes, as firmly as I credit my own existence, tiint 
such a recommendation as would be made by either of the 
patriotic committees of Congress who are now laboring to 
restore peace, or by the border States in council, would be 
hailed everywhere with approval. That done, the danger is 
over — peace restored — the Union, the glorious Union pre- 
served, and all its countless blessings secured forever. 

Hon. JReverdy Johnson, 1861. 



PERPETUITY OP THE UNION. 

It cannot be that such a Union as this should be destroyed. 
It cannot be that it is not beyond the reach of folly or of 
crime. 

If asked when I should be for a dissolution of the Union ? 
I answer as the patriotic Clay once answered, and as I know 
you will answer, " Never, never, never." 

Asked, " when I'd rend the scroll 

Our fathers' names are written o'er, 
When I would see our flag unroll 

Its mingled stars and stripes no more ; 
When, with worse than felon hand 

Or felon counsels, I would sever 
The Union of this glorious land ?" 

I answer — never, never ' never ! ! 

Think ye that I could "brook to see 

The banner I have loved so long 
Borne piecemeal o'er the distant sea ; 

Torn, trampled by a frenzied throng ; 
Tamely surrendered up forever, 

To gratify a soulless rout 
Of traitors ? Never, never ! never ! !" 

But whilst these efforts are being made to preserve it, and 
citizens on all sides are being brought to a sense of reason and 
duty, what is to be done ? Is civil war to commence ? Cer- 
tainly not, unless it be brought on by further outrages on the 
clearest constitutional rights. South Carolina has violently 
and most illegally, and as loyalty says, traitorously, seized 
upon fortresses, the admitted property of the United States, 
bought and constructed with their money, and for their pro- 



100 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

tection, and with her consent, and now threatens to seize the 
rest. But one other, Fort Sumter is left. It stands protected 
by the national flag, and its defence, and the honor of the 
nation, are, thank God, in the keeping of a faithful and gal- 
lant soldier. 

The name of Anderson already enjoys an anticipated im- 
mortality. Is that fortress to be surrendered ? Is he to be. 
abandoned ? Forbid it, patriotism ! Is that flag that now 
floats so proudly over him and his command — the pledge of 
his country's confidence, support, and power, to succumb to 
the demands of an ungrateful, revolting State, or to be con- 
quered by its superior accidental power ? I say, no, no — a 
thousand times no. The fortress must at all hazards be de- 
fended — the power of the national standard preserved, and 
the national fame maintained. This has been already sadly 
neglected, no doubt with good motives, but from misplaced 
confidence. It recently covered other spots that know it not 
now. Its place is supplied by one never known to the world, 
and never to be known. 

The Stripes and the Stars have long achieved a glorious 
name. They have been significant of power wherever they 
have waved, and commanded the respect and wonder of the 
world. And yet, in a State that owes so much to that flag — 
whose sons have so nobly and so often fought under it — it has 
been torn down, and vainly sought to be disgraced and con- 
quered. Vain thought ! Hear how a native poet speaks of 
it:— 

" Dread of the proud and beacon to the free, 
A hope for other lands — shield of our own, 
What hand profane has madly dared advance, 
To your once sacred place, a banner strange, 
Unknown at Bunker, Monmouth, Cowpens, York, 
That Moultrie never reared, or Marion saw V 

If the cannon maintains the honor of our standard, and 
blood is shed in its defence, it will be because the United 
States cannot permit its surrender without indelible disgrace 
and foul abandonment of duty. I have now done, and in con- 
clusion I ask you to do what I am sure you will cheerfully 
and devoutly do — fervently unite with me in invoking Heaven, 
in its mercy to us and our race, to interpose and keep us one 
people under the glorious Union our fathers gave us till time 
shall be no more. — Hon. Meverdy Johnson, 1861. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 101 



THE ALARUM, 



The last few weeks, Mr. Chairman, have been pregnant 
with events, and will furnish a mortifying chapter in our his- 
tory. Eight Senators, and numerous Representatives, have 
left their seats, and bid farewell to the Union. ' Our national 
flag has been insulted upon our own soil ; our vessels fired 
on and driven from the harbor of Charleston ; our forts have 
been forcibly seized, and our public officers arrested in South 
Carolina, imprisoned and threatened with death on a charge 
of treason against the State, for no other offence than dis- 
charging their duties under the Government; and yet we 
stand here debating what shall be done. Done! Go and 
roll up your banner, as you seem indifferent to its defence and 
honor, and lay it away as a memorial of your former great- 
ness. Go cable your ship in the port of "New York, and there 
let her rot. Go tell your brethren lying in dungeons that a 
Roman only had to claim to be a citizen of the imperial city 
to be protected, and that it was once so with Americans ; 
that they only had to name their country to be guaranteed 
security ; but alas, how changed and fallen is it now ! 

It is time, sir, that we should arouse. Men of America, 
why stand ye still? Arouse! Shake off your lethargy! 
All considerations of party should be lost with us, when 
our country is in danger. I am with every man who is for 
the Union, and against every man who is against it ; and I 
am ready now to march up to our national altar, and swear, 
" The Union, by the Eternal, it must and shall be preserved !" 
If its enemies bring war out of it, it must be so, though none 
would regret it more than myself. Our national property, 
our citizens, public officers, and rights, must be protected in 
all the States, and our men-of-war must be stationed off of 
southern ports to collect the revenue; and, if necessary, 
blockade them. This may, and I think would, aided by time 
and necessity, accomplish all; but, unless we mean to give 
up our Government, and feed it as carrion to the vultures, 
we ought not to be standing all the day idle. The enemy is 
battering at the very doors of the Capitol, and meditate a 
seizure of our national records, and the appropriation of the 
army and navy. Shall we wait until our flag is no longer 
respected, or shall we strike for the Constitution and the 
Union now? I have but little respect for that patriotism 
that goes moping about the streets, wringing its hands, and 
asking, "What is to be done?" It was just that kind of 
patriotism that Patrick Henry rebuked in the days of the 



102 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Revolution, when, lifted above ordinary mortals by the su- 
perhuman power of his eloquence, he exclaimed against delay 
when tbe chains of colonial bondage were clanking upon our 
shores, and within hearing of the patriots. The cords and 
sinews of the Government are snapping around us, and men 
are boasting that it is their hands which sever them. And 
yet there are no arrests for treason, as there ought to be, and 
would be, if the laws were "faithfully executed." 

I have said before, and repeat again, that my hope is not 
in the President, not in the army or navy, but in the people, 
who are a power above them all, and who will hold to a fear- 
ful accountability all who are unfaithful to their country. The 
blessings of this Union have dropped like the rains from hea- 
ven upon them, and they will see to its protection. It is of 
more value than all the population which it now contains. 
Born of the struggles of the Revolution and baptized in the 
blood of a noble ancestry, it is committed to them to enjoy 
and to transmit. My countrymen, you will preserve and 
guard it as it is. It has safely conducted you thus far, and 
you should trust it still. Should you ever entertain the 
thought or purpose of destroying it, you will bitterly curse 
that clay and moment when your thresholds and firesides are 
sprinkled with the blood of your wives and children. 

Hon. Edward Joy Morris^ 1861. 



AGAINST ALTEEING- THE CONSTITUTION. 

I desire to get it distinctly before the House, if I can, that 
whether compromises are, in the nature of things, desirable 
and necessary or not, still, at the present time, it is wholly 
improper and utterly perilous to the country, to enter into 
any compromise whatever. Every nation has some nucleus 
thought, some central idea, which they enshrine, and around 
which they cluster and fasten. The old Roman citizen had 
his Capitol and his Pantheon ; France has her Napoleon and 
military glory; England has her constitutional monarchy; 
and the old Jews had their temple and shekinah. The 
American people, sir, have this one central idea or thought, 
embalmed and enshrined as a nucleus thought, around which 
they all cluster, and to which they all adhere with a spirit of 
superstitious idolatry : the Union, the Constitution, the flag 
of their country, are a sort ofHrinity, to which the American 
people pay political homage and worship. 

And now, I insist, in this time of peril, of agitation and 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 103 

rebellion, it is no time to tamper with that holy instrument 
around which all American hearts cluster, and to which they 
cling with the tenacity of a semi-religious attachment. Do 
this, and by and by Pennsylvania, if she cannot have protec- 
tion for her coal and iron, which is her negro, will dissolve 
the Union. If New York is denied free trade, she will encir- 
cle the brow of her mayor with the diadem and place the 
sceptre in his hand. If Massachusetts fails to obtain her 
fishing bounties, she will secede. If Maine cannot have pro- 
tection to her lumber and fishing interests, she will dissolve 
the Union. Michigan, I believe, wants the St. Clair flats 
cleared ; and if you do not comply with her wishes in this 
regard, she will throw herself upon her sovereignty, dissolve 
the Union, and shed so much blood that the ensanguined 
tide shall pour over Niagara's rocks, and the fishermen at the 
mouth of the St. Lawrence will be startled with the reddened 
ripple around the prows of their boats, as was the mariner on 
the Mediterranean when the waters of Egypt were turned 
into blood. Illinois wants protection for her beef; or, what 
is more likely, she will not consent to pay tribute to Pennsyl- 
vania every time she shoes a horse or sharpens a plow. Ore- 
gon demands the payment of her war debt, or she will throw 
oif her allegiance. California demands the building of a Pa- 
cific railroad, or she will erect a Pacific republic. And so, 
sir, this grand fabric of our Government, baptized in our 
fathers' blood, and handed down to us to be in turn be- 
queathed to our children, is at the beck and mercy of any 
State that is disaffected or displeased in regard to some fed- 
eral legislation, or, more preposterous still, in reference to 
some State enactments. We are like sea-weed, waifs on the 
ocean, without anchorage, with no common rallying point 
around which to cluster, where our hearts can centre, and 
where we can say, "In life or death, in weal or woe, sun- 
shine or storm, we are for the flag of our country, our Con- 
stitution, and our Union." In this the hour of our peril, 
whatever may be our dissensions, it is unpatriotic and un- 
statesmanlike to place all the glories of the past, all the im- 
mense and varied interests of the present, and all the glori- 
ous hopes of the future, at the mercy and caprice of any one 
State in this Union. I think it is the highest statesmanship 
now, here, in this very year of our Lord 1861, to settle this 
question, without compromise, without concession, without 
conciliation: Have we a Government that is permanent and 
fixed, and that will protect and shelter us ? 

Hon. Oioen Lovejoy, 1861. 



104 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



PLEA POE THE UNION. 



Mr. President, I have designedly dwelt so long on the 
probable effects of disunion upon the safety of the American 
people as to leave me little time to consider the other evils 
which must follow in its train. But, practically, the loss of 
safety involves every other form of public calamity. When 
once the guardian angel has taken flight, everything is lost. 

Dissolution would not only arrest, but extinguish the great- 
ness of our country. Even if separate confederacies could 
exist and endure, they could severally preserve no share of 
the common prestige of the Union. If the constellation is to 
be broken up, the stars, whether scattered widely apart or 
grouped in smaller clusters, will thenceforth shed forth feeble, 
glimmering and lurid lights. 'Nor will great achievements 
be possible for the new confederacies. Dissolution would 
signalize its triumph by acts of wantonness which would 
shock and astound the world. It would provincialize Mount 
Vernon, and give this Capitol over to desolation at the very 
moment when the dome is rising over our heads that was to 
be crowned with the statue of Liberty. After this there 
would remain for disunion no act of stupendous infamy to 
be committed. No petty confederacy that shall follow the 
United States can prolong, or even renew, the majestic 
drama of national progress. Perhaps it is to be arrested be- 
cause its sublimity is incapable of continuance. Let it be so, 
if we have indeed become degenerate. After Washington, 
and the inflexible Adams, Henry, and the peerless Hamilton, 
Jefferson, and the majestic Clay, Webster, and the acute 
Calhoun, Jackson, the modest Taylor, and Scott, who rises 
in greatness under the burden of years, and Franklin, and 
Fulton, and Whitney, and Morse, have all performed their 
parts, let the curtain fall. 

While listening to these debates, I have sometimes forgot- 
ten myself in marking their contrasted effects upon the page 
who customarily stands on the dais before me, and the ven- 
erable Secretary who sits behind him. The youth exhibits 
intense but pleased emotion in the excitement, while at every 
irreverent word that is uttered against the Union the eyes 
of the aged man are suffused with tears. Let him weep no 
more. Kather rejoice, for yours has been a lot of rare fe- 
licity. You have seen and been a part of all the greatness 
of your country, the towering national greatness of all the 
world. Weep only you, and weep with all the bitterness of 
anguish, who are just stepping on the threshold of life ; for 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 105 

that greatness perishes prematurely, and exists not for you, 
nor for me, nor for any that shall come after us. 

The public prosperity! how could it survive the storm ? 
Its elements are industry in the culture of -every fruit ; min- 
ing of all the metals ; commerce at home and on every sea ; 
material improvement that knows no obstacle and has no 
end ; invention that ranges throughout the domain of nature ; 
increase of knowledge as broad as the human mind can ex- 
plore ; perfection of art as high as human genius can reach ; 
and social refinement working for the renovation of the 
world. How could our successors prosecute these noble 
objects in the midst of brutalizing civil conflict? What 
guarantee will capital invested for such purposes have, that 
will outweigh the premium offered by political and military 
ambition ? What leisure will the citizen find for study or 
invention, or art, under the reign of conscription ; nay, what 
interest in them will society feel when fear and hate shall 
have taken possession of the national mind? Let the miner 
in California take heed ; for its golden wealth will become 
the prize of the nation that can command the most iron. 
Let the borderer take care ; for the Indian will again lurk 
around his dwelling. Let the pioneer come back into our 
denser settlements; for the railroad, the post-road, and the 
telegraph, advance not one furlong farther into the wilder- 
ness. With standing armies consuming the substance of our 
people on the land, and our navy and our postal steamers 
withdrawn from the ocean, who will protect or respect, or 
who will even know by name our petty confederacies ? The 
American man-of-war is a noble spectacle. I have seen it 
enter an ancient port in the Mediterranean. All the world 
wondered at it, and talked of it. Salvos of artillery, from 
forts and shipping in the harbor, saluted its flag. Princes 
and princesses and merchants paid it homage, and all the 
people blessed it as a harbinger of hope for their own ulti- 
mate freedom. I imagine now the same noble vessel again 
entering the same haven. The flag of thirty-three stars and 
thirteen stripes has been hauled down, and in its place a 
signal is run up, which flaunts the device of a lone star or a 
palmetto tree. Men ask, " Who is the stranger that thus 
steals into our waters ?" The answer contemptuously given 
is, " She comes from one of the obscure republics of !S r orth 
America. Let her pass on." 

Hon. Wm. H. Seward, 1861. 



106 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



C0MPE0MISE UNTIMELY, 



If compromise were desirable, this is not the time to think 
of it. When the Constitution and laws are openly defied ; 
when forts and arsenals are seized by rebels ; when the flag 
of our country is no longer a protection to its citizens, but 
rather a target for treason, it is no time to compromise, not 
till treason is punished, our plundered property restored, and 
the stars and stripes planted again upon every fortress in the 
land. No people ever yet bought a permanent peace. The 
hordes of Alaric returned to demand new tribute after they 
had expended the gold extorted from the fears of Rome. 
So, compromise now ; and from this vantage-ground of pre- 
cedent they will demand new and ever-increasing guarantees 
to slavery. It is full time that we met this subject like men, 
like legislators acting for the future. We may shade our 
eyes with our hands, and swear that the sun is blotted from 
the heavens, yet there it is; we may compromise now, and 
tell others, and try to believe ourselves, that it is a finality, 
but who. does not know that the disease is yet left to spread 
and rankle, and finally to break out with deadly virulence. 

What a lamentable picture do we now present to the world. 
Citizens are seized, scourged, murdered ; armed bands of trai- 
tors capture forts and arsenals ; they fire upon our flag, and 
flaunt defiance in our very faces ; and yet Government, we are 
told — and told, too, by Northern men on this floor — Govern- 
ment is powerless ; we cannot enforce the laws. What to 
me is singular is, that these very men who now deny the 
power of Government to vindicate its laws are the men who 
talk loudest and longest about law and order whenever a 
fugitive, man or woman, is to be returned to slavery. Then 
law is a sacred thing, and its enforcement the highest duty ; 
but when law is invoked to arrest treason and robbery, then 
we are asked if we intend to resort to coercion. Is not co- 
ercion the essence of all government ? Not the coercion of 
unfeeling, intangible State organizations ; but the coercion of 
men, who are responsible to the law. 

How long since our Government became so feeble, so 
averse to force? When Anthony Burns was seized in Bos- 
ton, Government did not stand and hesitate. The army and 
navy were proffered at once ; and when, in the gray of the 
morning, he was marched down to the wharf, to be sent 
b;ick to slavery, he was escorted by a band of soldiers. 
There was coercion ; Government was then prompt as 
thought — a very giant in the presence of that poor, weak 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 107 

negro ; to hirn it was, " fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell." 
The executive of the nation was then a Mars panoplied for 
fight. But now, when crime is rife and treason rampant, the 
Executive, instead of using the power intrusted to him, to 
stay the crime and arrest the treason, looks on aghast, and 
suffers it to gather head and power til], finally, in utter de- 
spair, like a Dominican monk, he exclaims, " Ho ! all ye good 
people of the United States, let us pray !" and men that never 
thought of prayer before, respond, "Amen, let us pray." 

I confess, I feel humiliated and disgraced in this humilia- 
tion of my country. I lament its fallen greatness, and blush 
for its recreancy and shame. Our nation is now on trial be- 
fore the nations of the earth and posterity. How it will pass 
the trying ordeal, impartial history will record. If we dare 
be true, inlying upon justice, which is ever strong, then all 
will be well ; the brightest page of our history has yet to be 
written. But if, for material considerations or for peace, we 
barter away truth and right, then will history record our 
downfall and infamy, because we knew our duty and did it 
not. But whether in war or in peace, whether in the Union 
or out of the Union, I trust that that which is more than 
Union, more than Constitution — the rights of man — will 
come out of this struggle vindicated and unimpaired. Though 
the clouds hang heavily around us, narrowing our vision, yet 
I have an abiding faith that beyond the murky cloud, in the 
calm serene majesty of Omniscience, " standeth God within 
the shadow, keeping watch above his own." 

Hon. Sidney Edgerton^ 1861. 



COMPROMISE REPUDIATED. 

Me. Speaker, the South, which complains of oppression 
and wrong, has had the control of this government for twenty 
years. All its rights have been carefully secured ; and all 
our obligations to the South we have faithfully observed. 
You ask protection for your peculiar property. You get all 
that the Constitution gives — and more. But the North has 
cause of complaint. We ask, and' ask in vain for protection 
to our persons in your slave States. Unoffending northern 
men are scourged, branded, murdered, and they have no pro- 
tection from your laws. How can men who have encouraged 
these things, and who now justify the theft, robbery, and 
treason in the southern States, talk of that fiction of fictions — 
southern wrongs ? How the South has been oppressed — op- 



108 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

pressed with patronage and office ; and whenever it has felt 
power slipping from its grasp, it has raised the howl of dis- 
union ! And we are met here again, and asked what we are 
going to do to save the Union ? Gentlemen, the Union is ot 
far more importance to you than to us. We do not propose 
to disturb it ; do you ? We abide by the Constitution and 
laws, and expect you to do the same. If you will, the Union 
is safe. 

We are called upon to compromise with slavery — to give 
it new guarantees. If guarantees are to be given, I demand 
them for freedom. Now, when the souls of men are stirred 
as with the inspiration of liberty ; when Italy — long op- 
pressed, down-trodden, classic Italy — has risen from her night 
of enthrallments, and, vindicating her ancient renown, has 
wrung from the bloody hands of the Hapsburgs her long-lost 
freedom ; when the autocrat of Russia strikes from the limbs 
of his serfs the corroded fetters ; when disenthralled millions 
on the banks of the Oder, the Lena, the Volga, and the Dnie- 
per, are singing their songs of deliverance, it is no time in 
this nation, which began by avowing the sublime doctrine of 
man's inalienable rights — it is no time, I say, to talk of new 
guarantees to slavery. As we revere the memories of our 
fathers, we should see that their hopes of freedom are here 
realized, and that their blood was not shed in vain. The 
great interests of the present, and the yet greater interests 
of the future, demand of us that we stay the further aggres- 
sions of slavery. 

I will not compromise ; because I have no faith that any 
compromise we could make would stand one hour longer 
than it ministered to slavery. The people have not yet for- 
gotten — and I trust they will not soon forget — the fate of the 
Missouri Compromise. The treatment of Kansas, baptized 
in blood, that she might be enslaved, is yet terribly fresh in 
their remembrance. We have had compromise after com- 
promise, and each one was a finality. The perturbed spirit 
of slavery, we were told, was finally put to rest by the 
ghostly incantation of compromise. But hardly had the 
shouts of exultation died away, before the black gladiator 
stalked again into the arena, demanding new compromises. 
What security, I ask, have we that any compromise we may 
make will be any better observed ? 

I will not compromise, because I would not farther 
strengthen slavery. It is already strong enough to endan- 
ger, if not to annihilate, this government. In many of the 
States it has already obliterated every one of the ideas which 
inaugurated the revolution, and made it memorable in the 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 109 

free States. In the free States it has demoralized the senti- 
ment of onr people, both priest and politician, Church and 
State. " The trail of the serpent is over them all." With 
my consent, it shall never curse another foot of God's fair 
earth. By no vote of mine shall it ever be strengthened or 
countenanced. You may dissolve this Union, if you can. 
If its existence depends upon supporting, strengthening, and 
extending slavery, then the sooner dissolved the better. It 
was formed for the noble purpose of promoting justice and 
securing liberty ; and when your Union and Constitution fail 
to promote these ends, they are no longer the Union and 
Constitution of our fathers ; they are no longer worthy the 
support of freemen. 

But, Mr. Chairman, we are threatened with war, unless we 
yield to this new demand. Very well ; if war must come, 
let it come. Peace is not the first interest of a people. Bet- 
ter encounter war, with all its manifold horrors, than suffer 
the sense of justice and humanity to die out in the hearts of 
the people. War — fierce, bloody, and relentless war, is better 
than the perpetual war of despotism, which slowly but surely 
drags nations down to ruin. And gentlemen should know 
that the first blast of war will be the trumpet-signal for 
emancipation. Son. Sidney Edgerton, 1861. 



ENFOECING THE LAWS. 

Gentlemen say that they will not make war; they say 
that they do not intend to coerce a State, but that they will 
enforce the law. They propose to send the army, and navy, 
and militia of the United States — and my colleague from 
Cincinnati, in his speech yesterday, advised a call for volun- 
teers — to enforce the law. Xhey propose, with all this power, 
to invade a State — a State which they know has repudiated 
our authority, and denied our jurisdiction ; a State which, by 
the very exigency of the position which it has assumed by 
secession, is obliged to resist ; which has declared that it will 
resist ; which has prepared to resist. 

Now, when these armed bodies come together in hostile 
collision, is not that battle ? is not that war ? Are we to be 
told, if I may paraphrase the language used by Mr. Fox on 
an illustrious occasion, when, on the day after the battle, 
amid the gore of the dead and the groans of the dying, some 
stranger should inquire what all this means — are we to be 
told, Sir, " This is not fighting ; this is not war ; this is not 



110 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

coercion; these men have no cause of quarrel with each 
other ; there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it 
whatever ; this is only peaceably enforcing the laws !" Sir, 
the enforcement of your laws within a seceding State; in op- 
position to its will, is coercion of that State ; and coercion 
by armed force is war. These terms " collecting the reve- 
nue," " enforcing the law," " maintaining the Union," capti- 
vate our people. They smack of law and order, to which 
our people are very much attached. They are not unknown 
in American history. Our fathers heard them used in the 
same tone and spirit, and for the same purpose, as we hear 
them now. George III. was not so anxious to collect reve- 
nue, as he was intent on enforcing the law. He would have 
been willing at any time to repeal the revenue act, if he could 
have brought his conscience to the point of conceding to men 
who resisted the enforcement of the law. For seven years 
the British resorted to parliamentary expedients. They had 
their Boston Port Bill ; they had their commissioners of cus- 
toms ; they had their armed vessels stationed in the harbors 
to sustain the commissioners, and assist them in performing 
their duty. All failed. They then prosecuted the enterprise 
through seven long years of war. They enforced the laws 
at Lexington and Bunker Hill ; they enforced the laws at 
Princeton and at Trenton ; they enforced the laws at Eutaw 
and Cowpens, and King's Mountain and Yorktown ; until 
King George, wearied with his success, thanked God that 
He had put it into his heart to forget his ancient differences 
■ — with whom? With revolted colonies? With rebellious 
subjects ? With Yankees, who would not submit to the en- 
forcement of the laws ? No ; with the United States of 
America, w T hose independence he acknowledged, and with 
whom he made a treaty of peace. 

Pie collected the revenue ; but it was at the expense of a 
thousand pounds for every dollar. He enforced the law ; but 
by a breach of every guarantee of freedom contained in the 
British Constitution. He maintained the Union only in con- 
summating the loss of the finest colonial empire in the world, 
and of three million hardy, enterprising and patriotic sub- 
jects. Hon. Geo. H. Pendleton, 1861. 



THE DOCTRINE OF SECESSION ABSURD. 

I have said that I cannot recognize nor countenance the 
right of secession. Illinois, situated in the interior of the 
continent, can never acknowledge the right of the States 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. Ill 

bordering on the seas to withdraw from the Union at pleas- 
ure, and form alliances among themselves and with other 
countries, by which we shall be excluded from all access to 
to the ocean, from all intercourse and commerce with foreign 
nations. We can never consent to be shut up within the 
circle of a Chinese Wall, erected and controlled by others 
without our permission ; or to any other system of isolation 
by which we shall be deprived of any communication with 
the rest of the civilized world. Those States which are sit- 
uated in the interior of the continent can never assent to any 
such doctrine. Our rights, our interests, our safety, our ex- 
istence as a free joeople, forbid it ! The northwestern States 
were ceded to the United States before the Constitution was 
made, on condition of perpetual union with the other States. 
The territories were organized, settlers invited, lands pur- 
chased and homes made, on the pledge of your plighted faith 
of perpetual union. 

I do not know that I can find a more striking illustration 
of this doctrine of secession than was suggested to my mind 
when reading the President's last annual message. My at- 
tention was first arrested by the remarkable passage, that 
the Federal Government had no power to coerce a State back 
into the Union if she did secede; and my admiration was 
unbounded when I found, a few lines afterwards, a recom- 
mendation to appropriate money to purchase the island of 
Cuba. It occurred to me instantly, what a brilliant achieve- 
ment it would be to pay Spain $300,000,000 for Cuba, and 
immediately admit the island into the Union as a State, and 
let her secede and reannex herself to Spain the next day, 
when the Spanish Queen would be ready to sell the island 
again, for half price or double price, according to the gullibi- 
lity of the purchaser ! 

During my service in Congress it was one of my pleasant 
duties to take an active part in the annexation of Texas ; 
and at a subsequent session to write and introduce the bill 
which made Texas one of the States of the Union. Out of 
that annexation grew the war with Mexico, in which we ex- 
pended $100,000,000; and were left to mourn the loss of 
.about ten thousand as gallant men as ever died upon a battle- 
field for the honor and glory of their country. We have 
since spent millions of money to protect Texas against her own 
Indians, to establish forts and fortifications to protect her fron- 
tier settlements, and to defend her against the assaults of all 
enemies until she became strong enough to protect herself. 
We are now called upon to acknowledge that Texas has . a 
moral, just, and constitutional right to rescind the act of ad- 



112 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

mission into the Union ; repudiate her ratification of the res- 
olutions of annexation ; seize the forts and public buildings 
which were constructed with our money; appropriate the 
same to her own use, and leave us to pay $100,000,000 and 
mourn the death of the brave men who sacrificed their lives 
in defending the integrity of the soil. In the name of Har- 
din, and Bissell, and Harris, and of the seven thousand gal- 
lant spirits from Illinois, who fought bravely upon every 
battle-field of Mexico, I protest against the right of Texas to 
separate from this Union without our consent. 

Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, 1861. 



WAR DEPRECATED. 

The history of the world does not furnish an instance, 
where war has raged for a series of years between two classes 
of States, divided by a geographical line under the same 
national Government, which has ended in reconciliation and 
reunion. Extermination, subjugation, or separation, one of 
the three, must be the result of war between the northern 
and southern States. Surely you do not expect to extermi- 
nate or subjugate ten millions of people, the entire population 
of one section, as a means of preserving amicable relations 
between the two sections ! 

I repeat, then, my solemn conviction, that war means dis- 
union — final, irrevocable separation. I see no alternative, 
therefore, but a fair compromise, founded on the basis of 
mutual concessions, alike honorable, just, and beneficial to all 
parties, or civil war and disunion. Is there anything humil- 
iating in a fair compromise of conflicting interests, opinions, 
and theories, for the sake of peace, reunion and safety ? 
Read the debates of the Federal Convention, which formed 
our glorious Constitution, and you will find noble examples, 
worthy of imitation ; instances where sages and patriots were 
willing to surrender cherished theories and principles of gov- 
ernment, believed to be essential to the best form of society, 
for the sake of peace and unity. 

I never understood that wise and good men ever regarded 
mutual concessions by such men as Washington, Madison, 
Franklin, and Hamilton, as evidences of weakness, cowardice, 
or want of patriotism. On the contrary, this spirit of con- 
ciliation and compromise has ever been considered, and will 
in all time be regarded as the highest evidence which their 
great deeds and immortal services ever furnished of their 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 113 

patriotism, wisdom, foresight and devotion to their country 
and their race. Can we not afford to imitate their example in 
this momentous crisis ? Are we to be told that we must not 
do one duty to our country lest we injure the party ; that no 
compromise can be effected without violating the party plat- 
form upon which we were elected ? Better that all party plat- 
forms be scattered to the winds ; better that all political 
organizations be broken up ; better that every public man and 
politician in America be consigned to political martyrdom, 
than that the Union be destroyed and the country plunged 
into civil war. 

It seems that party platforms, pride of opinion, personal con- 
sistency, fear of political martyrdom, are the only obstacles 
to a satisfactory adjustment. Have we nothing else to live 
for but political position ? Have we no other inducement, 
no other incentive to our efforts, our toils, and our sacrifices? 
Most of us have children, the objects of our tenderest affec- 
tions and deepest solicitudes, whom we hope to leave behind 
us to enjoy the rewards of our labors in a happy, prosperous, 
and united country, under the best Government the wisdom 
of man ever devised or the sun of heaven ever shone upon. 
Can we make no concessions, no sacrifices for the sake of our 
children, that they may have a country to live in, and a Gov- 
ernment to protect them, when party platforms and political 
honors shall avail us nothing in the day of final reckoning. 
Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, 1861. 



APPEAL FOE THE CONSTITUTION. 

Me. Speaker, I ask the people and the people's repre- 
sentatives to maintain the Constitution in its integrity. Let 
us pass the laws which will enable the Executive to summon 
the people, the loyal people, not to the conquest of our coun- 
trymen, but to the defence of our Constitution. Let the 
Constitution be saved from violence and overthrow ; it is 
filled with the wisdom and goodness of its great founders ; it 
is the carved work of their poured-out spirits. Maintain it! 
maintain it inviolate until it fulfills its sublime mission, until 
this goodly heritage of ours, slumbering between two great 
oceans that engirdle the world, shall be filled with free com- 
mon wealths, in every one of which, without violence to any 
human being or any human habitation, every unjust fetter 
shall be broken, and every inherent right maintained. When 
no State will banish men because they are just, or enslave 
men because they are weak, or subject men to the perilous 



I 

114 . THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

edge of battle because they are strong, or strangle men like 
felons on the gallows, because, in obedience to the divine 
command, they remember those that are in bonds as bound 
with them. Maintain your Constitution until our temple of 
civil and religious liberty shall be complete, lifting its head- 
stone of beauty above the towers of watch and war, until all 
nations shall flee unto it, and its glory shall fill the whole 
earth. — Hon. Kinsley /S. JBingham, 1861. 



MARYLAND POE THE UNION. 

Maryland is placed in a more embarrassing attitude than 
any other State in the Confederacy. With a long line of two 
hundred miles of frontier bordering upon Pennsylvania ; with a 
line of eighty miles bordering upon Virginia ; with her great 
railroad — in which she has $30,000,000 — running into Vir- 
ginia, she is surrounded with the gravest embarrassments; 
and I can only rely on her wisdom and prudence, and accept 
her decision as my decision, and her destiny as my destiny. 
But I pray you to relieve her and her sister States from this 
perilous embarrassment. You can do it; and if you will act 
wisely and speedily upon the propositions before the house, 
you will be able to do it successfully. It would crack the 
very heart-strings of Maryland to be separated from the 
Union of the States, the foundation-stones of which are ce- 
mented with the best blood of her gallant sons, and to which 
she has always clung with so much loyal devotion and ear- 
nest reverence. Spare her, I conjure you, the necessity of 
even debating a proposition so painful. 

I observe, Mr. Speaker, that my hour is nearly out, and I 
must close, leaving unsaid some things of which I had wished 
to speak. I have never been able to regard with any .favor 
this idea of a southern confederation, even in its merely 
economic aspects ; and I am not able with any complacency 
to consider the possibility of my own State being its frontier 
line. I cannot hope for its permanency, based, as it must be, 
upon the recognized right of secession, and the consequent 
ability of any of its component parts at any moment to de- 
stroy it. ISTor do I desire to see the great mechanical and 
industrial interests of my State and city subjected to the 
policy of the cotton States, which are so likely to be its' ele- 
ment of controlling power. Free trade and direct taxation 
do not harmonize with the interests nor accord with the 
temper of Maryland ; and I have little faith in it. Born in 



SPEECHES 05 THE TIMES. 115 

revolt; cradled in passion; nurtured upon excitement; over- 
riding freedom of opinion; disregarding individual rights; 
burdened with taxation ; environed by fearful perils in the 
present, and destined to encounter more terrible troubles in 
the future ; based, as its foundation-stone, upon the right of 
any one of its component parts at any moment to secede 
froin the' structure, and thus break it up, I regard its promises 
as delusive, and its results as " Dead Sea fruits, that turn to 
ashes on the lips;" and to me the "gorgeous palaces and 
cloud-capped towers" that it presents to the gaze of the 
youthful and the ambitious, are as the sun-lit battlements and 
lengthening vistas of some treacherous mirage, that flees into 
airy nothing before the straining gaze and the. advancing step 
of the desert traveller. Rather give to me, and to my peo- 
ple, the Government that has been tested by eighty years of 
successful trial. Let not my ears be greeted with the music 
of the " Marseillaise," that stirs no pulse of my American 
blood. Flaunt not before my eyes the flag of a divided na- 
tionality, that rouses no emotion of my American heart ; but 
let me and my people, I pray you, go down to our graves 
with the consecrated melodies of the nation ringing in our 
ears, and over us the dome of the Union, glorious with all its 
constellated stars. — Hon. J. 31. Harris, 1861. 



THE PLAG INSULTED. 

Sie, the 7th day of January, 1861, is a day long to be re- 
membered in the annals of the American people. On that 
day a steamboat, called the Star of the West, was gliding- 
over the waters of the Atlantic into one of, the ports of the 
United States. A cannon ball came hissing and skimming 
across its prow; the stars and stripes sprung out to the 
breeze — as if startled by an event so unusual — to tell the 
persons, whoever they might be, that fired that shot, that the 
vessel aimed at was under the protection of the national flag. 
In a moment, another ball comes hissing and plunging into 
its sides — another, and another — and that flag, for the first 
time since its folds were unfurled to the breeze, turned and 
flapped ingloriously by the sides of the mast, and the vessel 
that bore it returned to the place of its departure. 1ST ever 
before, on the American continent, was that flag insulted. 
The almanacs that our children will read, among the memo- 
rabilia of 1861, opposite the 7th day of January, 1861, will 
have written, " The American flag, for the first time, fired 



116 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

upon by American citizens." I do not know how others 
may feel, but I confess I cannot keep it out of my mind — 
these balls booming, hissing, disgracing, and defying the flag 
of the United States, burn and sting to the very quick con- 
tinually. 

Mr. Speaker, it is under these circumstances, with the flag 
of our country disgraced and insulted — never before dis- 
graced or insulted — that we meet here to-day; and it is 
proposed to compromise, to concede, to conciliate. Compro- 
mise with whom ? With traitors who have fired on our flag ! 
Conciliate whom ? Rebels who have bid your Government 
defiance ! Sir, whatever I might yield under other circum- 
stances, whatever arrangements I might make, whatever 
compromises I might give my vote to support, never, as God 
lives, will I vote for one. particle of compromise until that 
insult is atoned, apologized for, or avenged ; never ! 

Hon. Owen Lovejoy, 1861. 



MUTUAL ANTIPATHY OF THE NOETH AND THE SOUTH, 

Those who are intent upon subverting the government, 
say that the people of the two sections are dissimilar; that 
they have their peculiarities and prejudices ; that they hate 
each other. Sir, that may all be true to some extent ; but 
there may be more hope of another, and, I trust, a better 
generation. How long have they been hating each other to 
that extent, which can justify a separation, and that intensi- 
fied hate which will be sure to follow fraternal war? The 
people of the North and South do not hate each other one 
particle more than did the embittered leaders of the old 
Whig and Democratic parties at the close of those sanguin- 
ary political conflicts which marked our history a few brief 
years ago. But will they love each other any more sincerely 
when they are separated into hostile armies, and encamped 
in battle array? Or, will the bloody traditions, which will 
disturb the repose of our children, prepare them for a more 
cordial embrace ? True, you may separate upon paper, but 
the Ohio will be a poor memorial of peace between a rival 
people and contending States. But I will not agree that you 
hate each other now. Our lineage is the same ; and each 
should know the other's infirmities by his own. If your con- 
stituents could sometimes see how frequently and how love- 
ingly the free-soiler and the southern radical hold kind and 
familiar council ; how often they almost embrace each other, 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 117 

they would not for a moment believe the stale complaint of 
sectional hate. I will tell you when you most cordially hate 
each other. It is when the ins are compelled to give place 
to the outs. When that army of political retainers, by /the 
reverses of political fortune, has to take up its baggage, and 
abandon the tempting harvests of the capital ; then it is you 
hate each other. Sir, if you desire to witness a grand living 
panorama of the sorrowful faces which were seen when the 
Jews were led into captivity, you have but to take a position 
upon one of these adjacent towers on the 4th of March, and 
behold these martyrs, now so devoted to country, when they 
are exiled from the places they now know and love so well. 

Sir, I trust that in a grave public emergency like this, love 
of our whole country, and every part of it may banish all 
meaner emotions. In an hoar like this I would scorn to 
cherish an unkind political feeling toward a human being. I 
feel that if I could, by immolating myself, add a day to the 
life of my country, I would freely make the offering ; and I 
trust that all others will yet be found to yield much to pre- 
serve that Union with which are mingled the best hopes of 
mankind. Again I ask you, will you love each other better 
in that fearful hour of final separation ? You will not. You 
cannot. But hate, undying hate, will foment and protract 
feuds and contests more bitter and unrelenting than those of 
the rival houses of York and Lancaster. Furthermore, let 
this Government be broken up, and the border slave States 
dragooned, first into revolution, and then into a southern con- 
federacy, and ten years will not have elapsed before the slum- 
bering fires of the present strife will be blazing there, and, 
perhaps, another revolution will mark our history. If this 
be not so, then all history is a falsehood, and its philosophy 
a lie. Hon. Emerson Mtheridge, 1861. 



THE SECESSION OF FLOEIDA. 

Me. Speakee, when the Declaration of Independence was 
proclaimed, when the Constitution was ratified, our western 
boundary was the Mississippi River. From that day to this, 
at the instance of southern statesmen, the area of this country 
has been vastly enlarged. Whatever territory the men of the 
South have asked Congress to acquire, the same has been ac- 
quired ; whatever policy her representatives have advocated, 
whether financial or commercial, has generally prevailed ; an,d 
in all these protracted struggles growing out of the slavery 



118 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

question, the just and reasonable demands and guarantees 
required by us have been given. 

The purchase of the Louisiana territory — a slaveholding 
country — was made at the instance of the people of the 
South. Three slave and two free States have already been 
formed within its limits. Its area was great. It now has 
vast resources, and in a few brief years it will have the wealth 
and population of a mighty empire. Fifty years hence, it 
will be more powerful in all that constitutes a state than was 
France when Napoleon, flushed with victory, first looked 
upon the " sun of Austerlitz." It was acquired, I repeat, by 
the negotiations of a southern president — northern represen- 
tatives generously voting with those of the South, to advise 
the treaty and to contribute the purchase money. Subse- 
quently, in 1819, we purchased Florida, in which slavery 
then and now exists. I mention Florida with somewhat of 
sorrow, I will not say with shame. But a few years ago the 
statesmen of this country were clamorous that Florida should 
he purchased by the Federal Government. For what purpose ? 
Because, said they, that peninsula belongs to a foreign power. 
It is part and parcel of this continent ; it is geographically a 
part of the United States ; it commands the entrance to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and its hostile eye frowns upon our com- 
merce — it must be ours. And, Sir, it was purchased — pur- 
chased at a cost of five million dollars. We have expended 
nearly fifty million in subduing and removing the savages. 
Millions more have been expended in erecting beacons and 
fortifications along her reefs, to protect the commerce of the 
whole country. Yet, after all these large expenditures, Flor- 
ida, with but little over half the number of the voting popula- 
tion of the district I represent, secedes — goes out of the Union 
— carrying with her, not only our public lands, but the forts, 
arsenals, and fortifications which were placed there by this 
Fovernment for the benefit of the whole Union. And worse 
still : she breaks the unity of our Government, and destroys 
the prestige which has attended her glorious career. I can 
better pardon South Carolina, for she was one of the glorious 
" old thirteen ;" but little Florida — which to-day has barely 
population sufficient to protect herself from the alligators 
within her borders — is wholly without apology. Florida, 
like Louisiana, was purchased by the aid of northern repre- 
sentatives, and paid for by the money of all of our people ; 
yet, without a single grievance, she is to destroy the Union 
of these States, to which she owes her very existence. 

Hon. Emerson Etheridge^ 1861. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 119 



TENNESSEE NOT TO BE DRIVEN INTO SECESSION. 

Mr. Speaker, as it is said that the cause of secession is 
gaming strength in Tennessee, I wish to say a few words — 
more, I confess, for the ear of the people of that State, than 
for this House. I wish to say to the people of Tennessee, 
that they, in the exercise of their rights as freemen, should 
survey the ground well, over which disunion asks them to 
tread. They should look at the origin of this movement, 
and to the instrumentality which has been used to bring it 
out. They should remember that in the cotton States — ay, 
sir, among Democrats who have rejoiced in all time past to 
magnify and glorify the power of the people — the men who 
have led this movement have not deigned to consult the peo- 
ple at all in regard to what they have done. They have not 
condescended to let them vote for secession, or no secession. 
I have no doubt that if the great heart of the southern peo- 
ple could be exhibited here to-day, the result would show 
that there are hundreds and thousands of men even in South 
Carolina, who, if they could be permitted to speak, would 
say they were against civil war, and against disunion. I 
doubt not that such is the fact in every southern State. But 
the tyranny of a despotic majority is there — a tyranny more 
to be dreaded than musketry or batteries. Freemen are so 
situated that they dare not speak their true thoughts. I 
would invoke the people of Tennessee also to remember the 
prophetic language, as it turns out to be, of Mr. Yancey : 
" We shall fire the southern heart, instruct the southern 
mind, give courage to each other ; and, at the proper mo- 
ment, by one organized, concerted action, we can precipitate 
the cotton States into a revolution" ISTot three years have 
elapsed since Mr. Yancey thus wrote. How wondrously has 
the southern heart been fired ! How rapidly have seceding 
States given courage to each other ! With no time for pop- 
ular deliberation, the concerted movement long meditateil 
has precipitated, hurried them headlong into revolution,; and' 
now they groan under taxation and prostrate credit, and 
hear " the thunder of the captains and the sliouting." 

This movement has been carried on to completion in South 
Carolina, without consultation with the border States as to 
her secession and hostile acts. She first put herself in the 
attitude of rebellion against the government ; the other cot- . 
ton States have followed in their turn; and now, whether 
right or wrong, willing or unwilling, they desire to drag us 
into the whirlpool of disunion. As a Tennesseean, I desire 



120 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEK. 

to raise my voice against being driven into secession. I pro- 
test against tyranny from any quarter whatever — against the 
tyranny that is attempted to be practiced upon us in the 
North, when they would force opinions upon us contrary to 
our will, and against this fiercer tyranny in the South, that 
proclaims fidelity to the Union treason, and would drag every 
Southern State into the vortex of civil war. And, sir, I can 
say, so far as the people of Tennessee are concerned, unless I 
greatly misapprehend their sentiments and feelings, they are 
not a people to be coerced, either by the North or by the 
South. The men whose fathers fought at King's Mountain ; 
the men who themselves fought at Talladega, at Ennickfaw, 
at the Horse-Shoe and upon the plains of New Orleans, 
and who sent their sons to fight at Monterey; whose blood, 
sir, was poured out like water at Cerro Gordo and Chapul- 
tepec ; such men, Mr. Speaker, never will submit to dicta- 
tion from any quarter under the heavens, be -it North, or be it 
South. No, sir ; they will not do it. I say to the people of 
Tennessee that they should resist this attempt to coerce them 
to do what they are otherwise unwilling to do ; resist it, it' 
need be, with arms, and unto the death. It is an insult that 
freemen ought not submit to. If Tennessee chooses to go 
out of the Union, let it be done by the deliberate and volun- 
tary act of her own sons, without constraint, and without 
coercion. Let her go not as a seceder; but in a manner 
worthy of the volunteer State. Let her, like our revolution- 
ary sires, have the boldness to go as a rebel, because she 
thinks the government has oppressed her, and because she 
has determined to throw off the yoke and risk all consequen- 
ces. — Hon. Thomas A. R. Nelson, 1861. 



THE SOUTH WARNED AGAINST MILITARY DESPOTISM. 

Ie war is to come upon us, if civil discord is to reign where 
peace so sweetly smiled before, the men who will have to fight 
the battles will not be your partisan leaders, who desire to be 
colonels and captains, majors and generals, governors and 
ministers ; but it will be the farmers, the mechanics, and the 
laboring men of the country. I ask them — and I would to 
God that my voice could echo and reecho from one end of 
my State to the other — are they willing to submit to this in 
order to build up a pampered aristocracy in the South ? Are 
they willing to do it in order to establish a military despotism 
in the South ? For, Mr. Speaker, not the least of all the evils 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 121 

which threaten us in the Southern States, is the danger of 
military domination. 

We have seen a great political movement, which gentlemen 
ludicrously call "peaceable secession," suddenly assume all 
the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, by arming and 
proposing to arm the whole of the Southern States. How 
easy for ambition to turn this movement against the liberties 
of the people ! Peaceable secession ! and yet the whole of the 
Southern States in arms. This is the manner in which they 
are attempting to carry out a long premeditated plot ; and 
now, throughout the Southern States, the despotism of mili- 
tary power is beginning to be felt. Cockades are in the 
ascendant, and plowshares may rust. A reign of terror is 
already beginning to trammel free speech in the South : and 
I doubt not that in many places the iron heel of military 
power is felt, and men opposed to rashness and precipitancy 
dare not speak as freemen should speak and as they would 
wish to speak, against secession. Let the people of Tennes- 
see awake. Let them beware of military conquerors — and 
let the whole land beware of them ; for, sir, if we shall over- 
throw the peaceful institutions which we have so long en- 
joyed ; if we shall dissolve the Union of the American States, 
some Caesar or Napoleon will soon trample down the liberties 
of the people and destroy the last hope and the last vestige 
of freedom upon the earth. How will the tyrants and despots 
of the world, who have delighted to deride free government, 
"laugh at our calamity, and mock when our fear corneth!" 
Let our people in Tennessee, and everywhere else, gather 
around our temple of liberty; — and, determined to oppose 
taxation, military despotism, a war of the sections, and strife 
such as earth has never seen — may they, with their own 
mighty arms, sustain its falling columns. 

Hon. Thomas A. B. Nelson^ 1861. 



WHY DESTKOY THIS GOVERNMENT? 

Me. Speakee, why shall we destroy this Government? 
Is it because it was an easy matter to establish it ? Go back 
to the days of the Revolution, and behold your fathers pro- 
scribed as traitors, abandoning their homes to the desolations 
of their foes, now flying before them, and then, half armed 
and almost naked, turning back upon their pursuers, with the 
blood trickling at every step from their unshod feet upon the 
frozen ground ; and when you remember these and a thousand 



122 THE PATKIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

other hardships they endured, consider that liberty and union 
were purchased at too great a cost to be madly thrown away. 
Ask the old soldiers who fought in the war of 1812, was it for 
this they slept upon the damp, cold earth, without tents to 
shield them from the pitiless peltings of the storm ? Was it 
for this that they suffered hunger and thirst, and perilled their 
lives in many a battle ? 

Why shall we destroy our Government? It has given us 
wise laws ; and no nation has ever prospered like our own. 
How wondrous has been its growth ! Go back in imagina- 
tion but twelve short years. Look out upon the broad prai- 
ries beyond the Mississippi. Far as the eye can reach behold 
the long procession of emigrants ; and almost before the mind 
can conceive the thought, California becomes a State, and 
San Francisco the New York of the Pacific ! 

Now gaze upon the mighty ocean. See one of our noble 
ships " careering over the waves." Wherever she goes, 
whatever port she enters, there is not a despot on earth who 
Would dare to interfere with crew or cargo. Why is this ? 
It is because she carries the star-spangled banner ; and that 
symbol of our union and our strength bears witness to the 
whole world that we have the will and the power to protect 
our citizens abroad as well as at home : 



" Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us ? 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And freedom's banner streaming o'er us." 

Why should we destroy our Government ? The liberty 
we enjoy is not simply the work of the seven years' war 
of the Revolution. It is the result o'f 'centuries of contest. 
Although the great charter of British freedom was granted 
ages ago, it required the struggle of ages to secure it. The 
memory of that struggle was handed down to our fathers, 
and inspired them to the mighty work which they accom- 
plished. There is not a provision in any of our bills of rights 
which may not be said to have been purchased with the tears 
and groans of a thousand years. If it be possible for those 
who have " shuffled off this mortal coil " to take an interest in 
the affairs of earth, how earnestly are our departed patriots 
gazing upon our country now ! Methinks I can almost see 
their shadowy forms, and hear the rustling of their angel 
wings. George Washington is looking down upon us, and 
with solemn earnestness admonishes us to cherish an undying 
love for the Union, and frown indignantly upon every effort 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 123 

to dissolve it. Andrew Jackson speaks to his friends, declar- 
ing, " the Federal Union, it must be preserved." The gallant 
Harry of the West is hovering over us, and, in trumpet- 
tones proclaims, " I am called upon to say when I will con- 
sent to a dissolution of this Union : my answer is, never ! 
never! NEVER! 

My countrymen, let us heed those warning voices. Let us 
settle all our controversies in the Union. Oh, trust not to 
that last delusive argument of the secessionists, that this 
Government, once dissolved, can be reconstructed. The 
causes which destroy it will forever preclude a reunion. 
Hate will be intensified, and a war of extermination will en- 
sue. It is in vain for either section to calculate upon the 
cowardice of the other. All are of the same race. All are 
alike brave : and a war once begun between us will have no 
parallel in the contests which history has described. May 
A.lmjghty God avert it ! — Hon. Thomas A. JR. Nelson, 1861. 



VINDICATION OF EEBELLION. 

We are told that the laws must be enforced ; that the rev- 
enues must be collected ; that the South is in rebellion with- 
out cause, and that her citizens are traitors. 

Rebellion ! the very word is a confession — an avowal of 
tyranny, outrage and oppression. It is taken from the des- 
pot's code, and has no terror for other than slavish souls. 
When, sir, did millions of people, as a single man, rise in or- 
ganized, deliberate, unimpassioned rebellion against justice, 
truth and honor ? In the words of a great Englishman on a 
similar occasion : " you might as well tell me that they re- 
belled against the light of heaven ; that they rejected the 
fruits of the earth. Men do not war against their benefac- 
tors ; they are not mad enough to repel the instincts of self- 
preservation. I pronounce fearlessly that no intelligent peo- 
ple ever rose,, or ever will rise against a sincere, rational and 
benevolent authority." 

Traitors ! Treason ! Ay, sir, the people of the South 
imitate and glory in just such treason as glowed in the soul of 
Hampden ; just such treason as leaped in living flame from 
the impassioned lips of Henry ; just such treason as encir- 
oleswith a sacred halo, the undying name of Washington! 

Since when, sir, has the necessity arisen of recalling to 
American legislators the lessons of freedom taught in lisping 
childhood by loving mothers, that pervades the atmosphere 



124 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

we have breathed from infancy, so forming part of our very 
being that in their absence we should lose the consciousness 
of our own identity? Heaven be praised that all have not 
forgotten them ; that when we shall have left these familiar 
halls, and when force bills, blockades, armies, and all the ac- 
customed coercive appliances of despots shall be proposed 
and advocated, voices shall" be heard from this side of the 
chamber, that will make its very roof resound with the indig- 
nant clamor of outraged freedom. Methinks I still hear 
ringing in my ears the appeal of the eloquent Representative 
whose northern home looks down on Kentucky's fertile bor- 
ders: "Armies, money, blood cannot maintain this Union; 
justice, reason, peace, may." 

And now, to you, Mr. President, and to my brother Sena- 
tors on all sides of this chamber, I bid a respectful farewell. 
With many of those from whom I have been radically sepa- 
rated in political sentiment, my personal relations have ]?een 
kindly, and have inspired me with a respect and esteem that 
I shall not willingly forget. With those around me from 
the Southern States, I part as men part from brothers on 
the eve of a temporary absence, with a cordial pressure 
of the hand and a smiling assurance of the speedy renewal 
of sweet intercourse around the family hearth. But to you, 
noble and generous friends, who, born beneath other skies, 
possess hearts that beat in sympathy with ours ; to you who, 
solicited and assailed by motives the most powerful that 
could appeal to selfish natures, have nobly spurned them all; 
to you who, in our behalf, have bared your breasts to the 
fierce beatings of the storm, and made willing sacrifice of 
life's most glittering prizes in your devotion to constitutional 
liberty ; to you who have made our cause your cause, and 
from many of whom I feel I part forever, what shall I, can I, 
say? Nought, I know and feel, is needful for myself; but 
this I will say for the people in whose name I speak to-day : 
whether prosperous or adverse fortunes await yoUj one price- 
less treasure is yours — the assurance that an entire people 
honor your mines, and hold them in grateful and affectionate 
memory. But with still sweeter and more touching return 
shall your unselfish devotion be rewarded. When, in after 
days, the story of the present shall be written ; when history 
shall have passed her stern sentence on the erring men who 
have driven their unoffending brethren from the shelter of 
their common home, your names will derive fresh lustre from 
the contrast ; and when your children shall hear repeated the 
familiar tale, it will be with glowing cheek and kindling eye : 
— their very souls will stand a-tiptoe when their sires are 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 125 

named, and they will glory in their lineage from men of spirit 
as generous, and of patriotism as high-hearted, as ever illus- 
trated or adorned the American Senate. 

Hon. Judah P. Benjamin, 1861. 



CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTUEE. 

If a portion of these States propose to inaugurate a new 
and great experiment upon this continent, in the establish- 
ment of two confederacies, lying side by side, the one based 
upon free labor, and the other upon chattel slavery, to run 
the race of greatness for a hundred years, I, for my children 
and children's children, will accept the issue. One of the 
powers will be dominant, and the other will at last exist, as 
some of the petty States of Europe exist, more by permission 
than by any inherent strength. Which this dominant power 
will be, I care not now to say ; but I am willing to abide the 
trial. It is safe to say that it will be that one which com- 
bines most of the elements which in these times go to make 
up a great nation. It will be that one which rests, not upon 
one form of industry only, but upon the infinite diversity of 
pursuits which compose our modern civilization. It will be 
that one in which shall flourish most, agriculture in its best 
methods ; manufactures in their endless variety of fabrics ; 
the mechanic arts in their countless forms ; commerce vexing 
every sea ; science, literature, inventions superseding human 
labor ; all the nobler arts ; institutions of learning of every 
grade ; universal education ; all that sustains and adorns 
life, all that enters into the structure of that grandest of hu- 
man creations — if it be not rather a divine work — a mighty 
State. 

I, for one, accept the position which the irreparable ordi- 
nances of nature shall decree for the State in which my for- 
tunes are cast. If war shall come, as it will come — though I 
cannot contemplate it with indifference — I abide its result 
with profound tranquillity. For the world will be taught 
again the old lesson, that national strength reposes in the 
homes of free labor ; that it springs up from the farm, and 
out of the workshop. And they who provoke the trial will 
find that a great English statesman said most truly, " No 
sword is sharper than that which is forged from the plow- 
share ; no spear more deadly than that which is beaten from 
the pruning-hook." 

And, sir, the most precious of all earthly possessions, con- 



126 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

stitutional republican liberty, is still secure. It will remain 
committed to the guardianship of a people equal to the sacred 
trust, and able to defend it against a world in arms. We 
have already had foreshadowed the erection, upon these 
shores, of governments " strongly military" in their charac- 
ter; and, sir, whatever provincial oligarchies, whatever petty 
or powerful despotisms may arise on our borders, the Re- 
public of the United States of America will ever be, as it has 
been, the champion of the liberties of the whole people. 
Whoever else may prove recreant, we can never give up that 
precious inheritance which our fathers brought with them to 
this continent and transmitted to us in yet more abundant 
measure. Not by our apostacy shall these inestimable rights 
of the people be betrayed and lost, only to be recovered after 
other centuries of heroic struggle and endurance, — when 
other Elliots and Martens have perished in prison ; when 
other Miltons have grown blind while their studious lamps 
" outwatched the bear ;" when other Hampdens have fallen 
on the bloody field; when other Russells have written and 
pleaded and» suffered ; when other Sydneys have spent the 
long night in solving the great problems of human liberty, 
and then when the morning came, have gone calmly out to 
seal the written page with their blood. 

This birthright shall never be surrendered by us. It has 
been won on too many fields of stricken battle ; it has been 
vindicated in too many triumphant debates. To secure it too 
many noble victims have bowed their serene brows to the 
block ; too many martyrs have lifted up unshaking hands in 
the fire. — Hon. James Humphrey, 1861. 



THE SUPREME COURT NOT PARAMOUNT. 

Sir, I desire to speak with great respect of that venerable 
court. The habits and studies of my life have taught me to 
defer to the authority of the judges. I recognize the great 
power which the Constitution has conferred upon them. I 
yield to their absolute authority over individuals who are 
rightfully before them for judgment ; but their power, su- 
preme as it is, is limited to the parties and the case. It can 
reach no further. The principle involved may be overruled 
by themselves, or their successors, and it may be reexamined 
when it touches the meaning of the Constitution by every 
other department of the Government. It is not of very great 
importance in itself what political opinions these very learned 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 127 

gentlemen may choose to form and express ; but the question 
as to the power and extent of the authority which these 
opinions carry with them, has become one of the vital issues 
of the day. If this wide-reaching jurisdiction over the whole 
sweep of public affairs shall be acknowledged by the people, 
as it seems to have been by some statesmen, then the people 
will have found a master; for the power to change the fun- 
damental law of a nation at will, is equally supreme and des- 
potic, whether placed in the hands of a single emperor at 
Paris, a council of ten in Venice, or a court of nine in Wash- 
ington. 

Mr. Speaker, I yield to no one in my respect for that court, 
when acting in its appropriate sphere. I recognize on that 
bench judges of great learning and worth. As a citizen, or 
a litigant, I am obliged to submit to their judgment in all 
cases to which I am a party, within their jurisdiction. As 
a lawyer pleading at their bar, I bow to the authority of 
their adjudged cases; but as a legislator, when the construc- 
tion of that great charter from which we both alike derive 
all our power, and which we are . equally bound to maintain, 
is involved, as a member of a coordinate and at least an equal 
branch of the common Government, their opinions with me, 
like those of all others, must stand or fall by their rendered 
reasons. Sir, I have an abiding faith that the people will 
never submit, nor allow their representatives to submit, to 
any such doctrine of final and infallible authority ; that they 
will never suffer this Constitution of theirs to be overlaid 
and smothered with legal precedents ; will never permit its 
fair page to be scribbled over with the glosses of old lawyers, 
like a palimpsest, in which some grand and simple old classic 
is obliterated by the black-letter substitutes of a chapter of 
chattering monks. 

I conclude, at all events, the principle of res adjudicata 
does not govern here. We at least can so far sink the tech- 
nics of the lawyer as to banish from this house the conven- 
tional notion that the last adjudication is therefore the best. 
Sir, if we are indeed to accept the opinions of the Supreme 
Court as absolute authority to control our votes here, I for 
one should prefer to choose the master by whose words I 
am to swear. I would go back to other days— to the 
Thompsons, the Washingtons, the Story s, and above all, to 
the great Chief Justice. Sir, when I compare the constitu- 
tional judgments of that illustrious jurist, who for so many 
years shed upon that tribunal the illuminations of his great 
mind, with the decisions of some more recent judges, in a 
late most celebrated case, I am almost tempted to exclaim 



128 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

with Cicero, when he compared the sophists and sciolists of 
his day with his own great master in philosophy, Malo errare, 
mehercle, cum JPlatone quam cum istis vera sentire. 

Hon. James Humphrey ', 1861. 



KEGOlTSTKUCTIOSr IMPOSSIBLE. 

Mr. Speaker, the fashionable phrase of the day now is 
reconstruction. Gentlemen speak with a coolness, which 
ought in these times to be refreshing, of violently breaking 
up this great Government for the purpose of reconstructing 
a better out of its shattered fragments. Sir, in my judg- 
ment there can be no more fatal delusion than this. Once 
make the separation complete, and you make it final. If the 
spirit of patriotism is so far extinct, if the ancient fraternal 
feeling has so utterly died out, that we are ready to overturn 
this structure, where and when shall we look for such a revi- 
val of both as shall suffice for its rebuilding ? Sir, if this 
Union were but an alliance, a league, a partnership, or what- 
ever other epithet of dishonor you choose to apply to express 
the lowest form of contract, such a reconstruction would be 
impossible ; for it could not take place without war, immedi- 
ate or proximate. When once kindred states have been torn 
asunder, and their borders have .become battle-fields, and 
their dissevered and bleeding edges have been cauterized by 
the fires of war, what skillful surgery, what sweet medica- 
ments of nature, what healing influences of time, can ever 
reunite them? 

But, sir, political institutions are not lifeless masses, to be 
shaped, and matched, and glued together at will by ingen- 
ious artisans. Great States are not dead, geometrical forms, 
to be arranged and rearranged into a hundred curious shapes, 
like a Chinese puzzle. They are vital organizations, which 
determine their forms, not by external forces, but by the 
principle of life within them. This national Government, as 
I think I have shown, is the growth of more than two cen- 
turies. It strikes its root far back into the earliest colonial 
settlements ; and when you can reconstruct the oak which 
you have hewn limb from limb, you may reunite and revivify 
the torn and dismembered body of the Republic. 

But, sir, this is not all. This ideal reconstruction is ren- 
dered forever impossible by the very act of dismemberment. 
Once establish the light of secession, and you not only des- 
troy this Union, but you destroy the living principle itself, 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 129 

without which no Umon can exist. Be assured that the 
States which remain loyal to this Constitution will never be- 
come parties to a trumpery compact, which can be dissolved 
in secret session, by a packed convention of a single State. 
Whatever States shall tear themselves away by revolutionary 
violence must return, if they return at all, with the recanta- 
tion of this heresy on their lips, and submissive to the true 
theory of the Constitution. — Hon. James Humphrey, 1861. 



THE COENEE STONE, 

The new Constitution has put at rest, forever, all agitating 
questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery 
as it exists among us — the proper status of the negro in our 
form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the 
late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his fore- 
cast, had anticipated this, as the " rock upon which the old 
Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture 
with him is now a realized fact. But whether he fully com- 
prehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and 
stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained 
by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the 
formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement 
of the African was in violation of the laws of nature ; that 
it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. 
It w r as an evil they, knew not well how to deal with, but the 
general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow 
or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would 
be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incor- 
porated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the 
time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential 
guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no 
argument can be justly used against the constitutional guar- 
antees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the 
day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. 
They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. 
This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea 
of a government built upon it ; when the " storm came and 
the wind blew, it fell." 

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite 
idea ; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the 
great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man. 
That slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his nat- 
ural and normal condition. 

6* 



130 THE PATBIOTIC SPEAKER. 

This, our new government, is the firH in the history of the 
world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral 
truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its devel- 
opment, like all other truths in the various departments of 
science. It has been so even among us. Many who hear 
me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not gen- 
erally admitted even within their day. The errors of the 
past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years 
ago. Those at the North who still cling to these errors, 
with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. 
It is upon this principle our social fabric is firmly planted, 
and I can not permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of 
its full recognition throughout the civilized and enlightened 
world. 

As I have stated, the truth maybe slow in development, 
as all truths are, and ever have been, in the various branches 
of science. It was so with the principles announced by. 
Galileo ; it was so with Adam Smith, and his principles of 
political economy. It was so with Harvey and his theory of 
the circulation of the blood. It is said that not a single one 
of the medical profession, living at the time of the announce- 
ment of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now, 
they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, 
look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledg- 
ment of the truths upon which our system rests ? It is the 
first government ever instituted upon principles in strict con- 
formity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in fur- 
nishing the materials of human society. Many governments 
have been founded upon the principle of the enslavement of 
certain classes ; but the classes thus enslaved were of the 
same race, and in violation of the laws of nature. Our sys- 
tem commits no such violation of nature's laws. The negro 
by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that 
condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, 
in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with 
proper materials — the granite — then comes the brick or the 
marble. The substratum of our society is made of the mate- 
rial fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that 
it is best not only for the superior, but for the inferior race 
that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the 
ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the 
wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His 
own purposes He has made one race to differ from another, 
as He has made " one star to differ from another in glory." 

The great objects of humanity are best attained, when con- 
formed to His laws and decrees, in the formation of govern- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 131 

ments as well as in all things else. Our Confederacy is 
founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. 
This stone which was rejected by the first builders, "is be- 
come the chief stone of the corner" in our new edifice. 

Hon. A. H. Stephens ■, March, 1861. 



UNNECESSAKY EXCITEMENT CAUSED BY IREESPONSIBLE MEN. 

One objection I take to the passage of the resolutions, that 
it will much increase the excitement and panic already exist- 
ing through the State, and so existing more by apprehension 
and the ceaseless efforts of a sensation press, than for any just 
and sufficient cause. It will alarm unnecessarily the innocent 
women and the plain yeomanry of the State, who have little 
time to investigate matters of public concern, and will lead to 
general disquiet. The adoption of the resolutions will be re- 
garded as a sort of license to the wicked elements among us. 
Besides the mass of conscientious and honorable secessionists, 
there is in this State, as in all others, a class who desire revo- 
lution because they may be benefitted and cannot be injured 
by change — that class so well described by the historian Sal- 
lust as studiosi novamm rerum — desirous of change — because 
in the general upheaving of society, they might come to the 
surface, and be bettered in their condition. This class long 
for collision and blood, because they know well that the first 
clash between the State and Federal muskets — the first drop 
of blood that collision spills — will enkindle a flame that will 
light them on to the accomplishment of their foul, hellish 
purposes of blood ancl carnage. This class would, in a mere 
spirit of adventure, fire the very temples of liberty, and dash 
into fragments that proudest and noblest monument of human 
wisdom — the Union of these States — the handiwork of Wash- 
ington, and Franklin, and Madison, and Gerry, and Morris, 
and comrade conscript fathers — under which we have been 
the proudest, freest, happiest, greatest nation on the face of 
the earth. This class does exist in Virginia. It exists all 
over the civilized earth, and it is no detraction from Virginia 
to say that it exists within her domain ; she would be an 
exception to all human society, if she did not hold in her 
bosom such a class. Now all this class will be stimulated by 
the passage of these revolutionary, and force-inviting, and 
lawless resolutions, to deeds of lawlessness, violence and 
blood. Let this legislature beware how it holds out the se- 
ductive bait. It may encamp us on a mine which a spark 



132 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

may explode, and the explosion of which may " deal damna- 
tion round the land," and involve the fathers and mothers, 
and husbands and wives, and sons and daughters, and 
brothers and sisters, and innocent children of Virginia in 
miseries and woes unnumbered, the end whereof none of the 
present generation may live to see. — Joseph /Segar, 1861. 



SECESSION NO TKUE VIRGINIAN DOCTRINE. 

Sir, there is nothing in the past political action of Virginia, 
nor anything in the past or present relations between her and 
the Federal Government, -to justify the extreme and revolu- 
tionary movement the secessionists propose for her. 

In 1798 she fixed her great general rule — that the Federal 
Government should not be resisted until it had committed 
some " deliberate palpable and dangerous" infraction of the 
Constitution. What infraction of this sort has been com- 
mitted by the Federal Government ? What is it — where is 
it — when was it committed ? Has the present administra- 
tion perpetrated any such aggression ? And if the seceding 
States had remained in the Union, could Congress, with 
twenty-one majority in one House, and eight in the other, 
have committed any outrage upon the rights of Virginia, or 
of the South? Virginia then, on her own established prin- 
ciples of political action, ought not now to present the spec- 
tacle she does of extreme excitement, and ought not and can- 
not, consistently rush upon the violent and unconstitutional 
measures involved in these Senate resolutions, much less se- 
cede from 'the Union. She ought — it ^becomes her dignity 
and her ancient renown — to look calmly, even placidly, 
around her, and from the stand-point of that dignity and re- 
nown surveying the whole ground, consider and advise, and 
remonstrate and forbear, and forbear yet again, until every 
pacific and constitutional expedient for composition and 
safety shall have been exhausted. And furthermore, these 
radical measures of seizing the United States arms and seceding 
from the Union, are totally unwarranted by the more recent po- 
litical action of Virginia. In 1850, when the subject of the 
Wilmot Proviso was up for consideration in her legislature, she 
took a new position. She declared that if any one of four 
things should be done by the Federal Government, she would 
" resist at all hazards and to the last extremity :" first, the 
application of the Wilmot Proviso to the common territories; 
secondly, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia ; 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 133 

thirdly, interference with slavery in the States ; and fourthly, 
interference with the slave trade between the States. Has 
any one of these things been done? Has the Wilmot Pro- 
viso been applied to the Territories ? No. On the contrary 
at the late session of Congress, though it had, by the seces- 
sion of the Gulf States, a clear majority, that body, Republi- 
can as it is, passed three territorial bills, from all of which 
the Wilmot. Proviso was excluded. There was no slavery 
prohibition whatsoever ; and more than this, a provision was 
incorporated in each of them that all rights of property and 
questions of personal freedom should be determined by the 
principles and proceedings of the common law, with the right 
of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States — pro- 
visions that open the territories to every citizen of the Union 
who may choose to carry his slaves thither. Has any. been 
enacted abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia ? No. 
Even 3Ir. Lincoln assures us that he will approve no such 
law, except with the consent of the slaveholders of the Dis- 
trict, and then not without compensation to the owners. 
Has any law been passed interfering with slavery in the 
States? Not at all. Such a doctrine is not even in the 
Chicago platform, and — what, in my judgment, ought for- 
ever to quiet Southern apprehension in regard to slavery in 
the States and even elsewhere — at the late -session of Con- 
gress — in which by the secession of the Gulf States, as 
already stated, the Republicans have the majority — a resolu- 
tion was adopted by the necessary constitutional majority, 
recommending an amendment to the Constitution, whereby, 
hereafter, interference with slavery in the States by the 
Federal Government is to be totally and forever forbidden. 
Has the proposition to interfere with the slave trade between 
the States been ever heard of in Congress, or has it been 
even talked about except by the most extreme abolitionists ? 
Not one then of the four things has been done for which 
Virginia said she would withdraw from the Union. Why, 
then, all this hot excitement and this hot haste to get out of 
the Union ? Can Virginia on her own principles, proceed- 
hastily to extreme measures of resistance, or to the adoption 
of the seizure and appropriation proposed by the resolutions 
before us ? 

Verily, if her sons in this hall, who are constituted the 
special guardians of her honor, regard consistency as one of 
her jewels, they will make that jewel glow all the brighter 
by voting down these shameful resolutions, and repudiating 
secession until, on our own solemnly avowed principles, the 
hour for resistance and revolution shall have come. 

Joseph /Segur, 1861. 



134 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 



CAUSELESS COMPLAINTS OP THE SOUTH. 

I desire to be informed what wrong has been done to me, 
or any citizen of the South, or the South at large, by that 
Federal Government which some regard as accursed, and 
which they so hurry to destroy. I, for one, am not aware 
of any. If there be any law on the Federal statute-book im- 
pairing the rights of one southern man, or impeaching the 
equality of the southern States with the northern, let it be 
pointed out. The production of it is defied. No man has 
ever shown it, and no man ever can, because it is not on the 
statute-book. If it be there, it is easy to show it. If I am 
wrong, let my colleagues here, set me right ; and lest perhaps 
I may be in error, I ask them one and all — I appeal to you, 
Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from Madison, Gen. Kemper, 
to my ardent disunion friend from Stafford, Mr. Seddon, to all 
the confessed secessionists in this body, and to all such out- 
side of this body, to put their finger on one Federal law in 
the least degree infringing the constitutional rights of the 
South. If it exist, let me see it, that I may recant the error. 

More than this, there is not only no such statute to be 
found from 1789 to this moment, but the Federal Government 
has been to the South the most parental of governments. 
Why, then, should we of the South desire to part with such 
a government? Some wrongs we are undoubtedly suffer- 
ing at the hands of some of the northern States, but these 
grievances lie not at the door of that parental Federal Gov- 
erninent, whose blessings drop upon us as gently as the dews 
of heaven, — nor are they now for the first time existing. They 
existed and we endured them under the previous administra- 
tions, but now they have become wrongs so enormous and 
intolerable, that on account of them we must in an instant 
shiver this blessed Union into fragments. 

But here arises the practical inquiry — that which so much 
concerns the masses of the people — shall we redress these 
grievances, or make them lighter, or remedy any wrong by 
disunion ? Most assuredly not. Whatever ills we are suf- 
fering will be a thousand times aggravated by a separation 
of the States. The slavery agitation will be intensified ; we 
shall lose scores of slaves where we now lose one ; because 
by the abolition of the Fugitive Slave Law, and by reason 
. of the readier facilities of escape, there will be no effectual 
impediment to such escape ; the underground railroad will be 
sped, and its operations vastly extended ; emigrant aid so- 
cieties will be augmented in number, and means, and em- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 135 

cieney ; and for one active abolitionist we shall have a thou- 
sand. The alienation which will be left behind disunion, the 
bitter and deep-seated sectional hate, and incessant border 
feuds and wars that must and will flow from the source of 
disruption, will as surely bring about these lamentable results 
as God's sun will send down his rays upon the earth when 
his broad disc glories above the horison. 

Joseph Segar, 1861. 



CONSEQUENCES OP SECESSION. 

It 

Me. Speaker, I shall not argue this doctrine of secession. 
The simple history of the Constitution ; its simple and yet 
plainer reading ; the overwhelming authority of our fathers 
against it, the crushing weight of opinion against it in our 
own State — her Jefferson declaring that even the old Confed- 
eration, a government far weaker than the present Federal 
Union, possessed the power of coercion — her Madison, the 
very father of the Constitution, solemnly asserting that its 
framers never for one moment contemplated so disorganizing 
and ruinous a principle — her great and good Marshall, decree- 
ing more than once, from the bench of the Supreme Judiciary, 
that the Federal Constitution did not constitute a mere compact 
or treaty, but a government of the whole people of the United 
States, with supreme powers within the sphere of its authority 
— Judge Spencer Roane, the Ajax Telamon, in his day, of 
her State-rights republicanism, endorsing the sentiment : " It 
is treason to secede !" — her Thomas Ritchie, the " Napoleon 
of the Press," and Jupiter Tonans of the modern democracy, 
heralding, through the columns of the Richmond Enquirer, 
the impregnable maxims that "no association of men, no 
State or set of States has a right to withdraw from the Union 
of its own accord," and that "the first act of resistance to the 
law is treason to the United States;" the decisions of some 
of the most enlightened of the State judiciaries in repudiation 
of the dangerous dogma ; the concurrent disavowal of it by 
the Marshalls, and Kents, and Story s, and McLeans, and 
Waynes, and Catrons, and Reverdy Johnsons, and Guthries, 
and all the really great jurists of the land ; the brand of 
absurdity and wickedness which has been stamped upon it 
by Andrew Jackson, and Webster, and Clay, and Crittenden, 
and Everett, and Douglas, and Cass, and Holt, and Andrew 
Johnson, and vYickliffe, and Dickinson, and the great body 
of our truly eminent statesmen : these considerations and 



136 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

authorities present the doctrine of secession to me with one 
side only. 

But I do wish to inquire of my colleagues, if they have 
seriously reflected on the consequences of secession, should it 
come? 

Do you expect, (as I heard some of you declare,) that the 
power and influence of Virginia are such that you will have 
peaceable secession, through an immediate recognition of 
the separate independence of the South ? Alas ! you hug a 
delusion. 

Peaceable secession — secession without war ! You can no 
more have it than you can crush in the rack every limb and 
bone of the human frame without agonizing the mutilated 
trunk. " Peaceable secession !" said Mr. Webster, " peacea- 
ble secession! Sir," continued the great expounder, "your 
eyes and mine are not destined to see that miracle. The dis- 
memberment of this vast country without convulsion ! The 
breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruf- 
fling the surface !" No ! secede when you will, you will 
have war in all its horrors ; there is no escape. The Presi- 
dent of the United States is sworn to see that the laws be 
faithfully executed, and he must and will — as Gen. Washing- 
ton did, and as Gen. Jackson would have done in 1833 — use 
the army, and the navy, and the militia, to execute the laws, 
and defend the Government. If he does not, he will be a 
perjured man. Besides, you cannot bring the people of the 
South to a perfect union for secession. There are those, — 
" and their name is legion " — whom no intimidation can drive 
into the disunion ranks. They love the old Union which 
their fathers transmitted to them, and under which their 
country has become great, and under which they and their 
children have been free and happy. Circumstances may re- 
press their sentiments for a while, but in their hearts they 
love the Union ; and the first hour they shall be free to speak 
and to act, they will gather under the Stars and Stripes, and 
send up their joyous shouts for the old flag. They will not 
fight with you against the flag; so that there must be a 
double war — a Federal war, and a war among ourselves. 
And it may be that whole States may refuse to join in the 
secession movement, (which is most probable,) and then we 
shall witness the revolting spectacle of one Southern State 
warring against, and in deadly conflict with, another ; and 
then, alas ! will be over our unhappy country a reign of ter- 
ror none the less terrific than that which deluged with blood 
and strewed "with carnage revolutionary France. 

Joseph SegaV) 1861. 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 137 



THE EFFECT OF DISUNION ON SL'AVEET. 

Supposing the State to have seceded, and war to have 
opened, what trophies do you look for ? — what are you to 
gain ? 

Will you win greater security for the institution of slavery 
in the States ? You do not want it. The Supreme Court 
has raised an impregnable bulwark for its defence. And 
even the Republican party has voluntarily tendered you an 
amendment of the Constitution forever guaranteeing slavery 
in the States against even the. touch of Federal legislation. 

Will you strengthen your claim to the common Territo- 
ries ? Here too the Supreme Court, by the Dred Scott de- 
cision, has settled, your rights ; and the administration party 
in Congress have abandoned the Wilmot proviso. They have 
passed territorial laws without any restriction whatever — thus 
leaving every slaveholder in the South free to enter the Terri- 
tories with his slaves, and even throwing the aegis of judicial 
protection over that species of property when there. 

Shall we, by secession and war, lose fewer slaves than by 
obtaining a better execution of the fugitive slave law ? Why, 
by secession you annul the fugitive slave law, and forfeit all 
its benefits. Moreover, you bring Canada, the great asylum 
for fugitive slaves, to the Virginia border ; so that^ to get his 
freedom, a slave has but to cross a narrow stream or an 
imaginary line ; and, by avoiding all obligation to return fu- 
gitives, and discouraging all willingness to do so, you create 
other asylums north of us, immediately contiguous to the 
border slave States — the inevitable consequence of which will 
be not only that those States will lose a much larger number 
of slaves than heretofore, but that in a few years slavery will 
disappear from them altogether. 

With Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and Indiana, and Illinois, 
and Iowa made enemies — as enemies, and bitter enemies, se- 
cession will surely make them — no human power can pre- 
vent the extinction of slavery in the States of Virginia, Ma- 
ryland, Kentucky and Missouri. Fire will not more effectu- 
ally reduce the fagot to cinders, or water extinguish flame, 
than secession will bring slavery in those States to annihi- 
lation. 

In my judgment, there is no safety for this institution save 
in the Constitution, of the United States. There it is recog- 
nized and protected. No other property is specially pro- 
tected. Slaves are represented ; no other property is. This 
Union of- ours is the great bulwark of slavery. Nowhere 



138 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

else has it flourished ; and break up the Union when you will, 
you knock away its strongest prop. • A southern confederacy 
will be to it its deadliest blast, if not its grave. The whole 
civilized world is intensely hostile to slavery; and the mo- 
ment a new confederacy is formed, based on the single idea 
of slavery, numerous and malignant antagonisms will be pro- 
voked which may endanger the institution. But'-under the 
shield of the Constitution of the United States these antag- 
onisms, whether foreign or domestic, are, and ever will be, 
harmless. In that blessed instrument it is a recognized insti- 
tution — part and parcel of our frame of government, and of our 
social and industrial system — to the protection f which the 
entire power of the great Government of the United States 
stands pledged before the entire world. Thus secure under 
the wing of the Union, why shall we risk its security by rush- 
ing on untried experiments? — Joseph Segar, 1861. 



THE GAINS OF DISUNION. 

Foe what, then, are we plunging into the dark abyss of 
disunion? In God's name, tell me. I vow I do not know, 
nor have I ever heard one sensible or respectable reason as- 
signed to this harsh resort. We shall lose everything ; gain 
nothing but war, carnage, famine, social desolation ; wretch- 
edness in all its aspects, ruin in all its forms. We shall gain 
a taxation, to be levied by the new government, that will eat 
out the substance of the people, and " make them poor in- 
deed." We shall gain alienation and distrust in all the dear 
relations of life. We shall gain ill blood between father and 
son, and brother and brother, and neighbor and neighbor. 
Bereaved widowhood and helpless orphanage we shall gain 
to our hearts' content. Lamentation, and mourning, and 
agonized hearts we shall gain in every corner where " wild 
war's deadly blast" shall blow. We shall gain the prostra- 
tion of that great system of internal development which the 
statesmen of Virginia have looked to as the basis of all her 
future progress and grandeur, and the great hope of her 
speedy regeneration and redemption. We shall gain repudi- 
ation ; not that Virginia will ever be reluctant to redeem her 
engagements, but that she will be disabled by the heavy 
burdens of secession and war. We shall gain the blockade 
of our ports, and entire exclusion from the commerce and 
markets and storehouses of the world. We shall gain the 
hardest times the people of this once happy country have 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 139 

known since the War of Independence. I know not, indeed, 
of one single interest of Virginia that will not be wrecked by 
disunion. And, entertaining these views, I do shrink with, 
horror from the very idea of the secession of the State. I 
can never assent to the fatal measure. No ! I am for the 
Union yet. Call me submissionist or traitor, or what else 
you will, I am for the Union — " while hope's light flickers in 
the socket." 

And if I may presume to tender an humble exhortation to 
my colleagues in this hall, I would say to them, as I said to 
a number of my respected constituents, who recently called 
on me for my views of the crisis that besets us : " As Wash- 
ington advised his countrymen, cling fondly to the Union. 
Take every chance to save it. Conference with the border 
States, convention of the slave States, general convention of 
all the States — try these and all other conceivable means of 
saving the Union from wreck. And when all conceivable 
expedients shall have seemingly failed, if there be but one 
faint ray of hope, let that light you to yet one more effort to 
save it."— Jbseiih Segiar, 1861. 



NOT QUESTIONS. 

Fellow Citizens : we are cast on perilous times. The 
demon of discord has inaugurated his terrible court, and it 
becomes us, as a great people, to act in a manner becoming 
this Government and people. In a somewhat extended ser- 
vice I have entertained my own views of what each section 
of this confederacy owed to the other. Through a spirit of 
forbearance, fraternity and friendship, I had hoped, notwith- 
standing there might be subjects of irritation, that the heal- 
ing influence of time and the recollection of the great names 
and greater memories of the revolution would call back all 
to their duty, that all might be harmonized, and that we 
might all march on together like brethren to a great and 
common destiny. But while we were revelling in these 
dreams a fortress has been attacked and reduced, or evacu- 
ated. The flag of the country has been insulted, public 
property seized, and civil war exists this day by the action 
of those who should be, and are our sister States — by those 
who are our brethren. In this great crisis it is no time to 
inquire for causes remote, and distant; it is no time to in- 
quire who holds the helm of the ship of state ; it is no time 
to inquire what interest or section placed him there. The 



140 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

only question is, does he steer the ship between the Scylla 
and Charybdis which threaten our Union, according to the 
lights of the Constitution ? If he does, he is to be sustained. 
I shall not pursue this matter in an angry spirit. I would 
make every effort to bring back every wandering lamb to the 
fold again. I would not levy war for aggression — I would 
levy it for defensive peace. I would not do it to despoil 
others. I would arm, and that in a manner becoming this 
Government and people, not for aggression, but for defence 
— for the purpose of retaining our honor and dignity, not 
only at home, but among the nations of the earth. The 
most brilliant successes that ever attended the field of battle 
could afford me no pleasure ; because I cannot but reflect 
that of every one who falls in this unnatural strife, be it on 
one side or on the other, we must, in our sober moments, 
exclaim, — 

Another sword has laid him low, 
Another, and another's ; 
And every hand that dealt a blow — 
Ah, me ! it was a brother's. 

But we are called upon to act. There is no time for hesi- 
tation or indecision — no time for haste and excitement. It 
is a time when the people should rise in the majesty of their 
might, stretch forth their strong arm and silence the angry 
waves of tumult. It is time the people should command 
peace. It is a question between union and anarchy — between 
law and disorder. All politics for the time being are and 
should be committed to the resurrection of the grave. The 
question should be, " our country, our whole country, and 
nothing but our country." 

But while I would prosecute this war in a manner becom- 
ing a civilized and Christian people, I would do so in no vin- 
dictive spirit. I would do it as Brutus set the signet to the 
death-warrant of his son — " Justice is satisfied, and Rome is 
free." I love my country ; I love -this Union. It was the 
first vision of my early years; it is the last ambition of my 
public life. Upon its altar I have surrendered my choicest 
hopes. I had fondly hoped that in approaching age it was 
to beguile my solitary hours, and I will stand by it as long 
as there is a Union to stand by — and when the ship of the 
Union shall crack and groan, when the skies lower and 
threaten, when the lightnings flash, the thunders roar, the 
storms beat, and the waves run mountain high, if the ship 
of State goes down, and the Union perishes, I would rather 
perish with it than survive its destruction. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 141 

Fellow citizens, let us rally round the flag of our country. 
I love that flag, with all its stars and stripes — that flag of 
my fathers — that flag that is known and honored throughout 
the earth, wherever civilization has travelled. I love it still. 
Let us maintain our flag in the same noble spirit that anima- 
ted the gallant Anderson, and never desert it while one star 
is left. If I could see my bleeding, torn, maddened and dis- 
tracted country once more restored to quiet and lasting 
peace under those glorious stars and stripes, I could almost 
be ready to take he oath of the infatuated leader in Israel — 
Jephtha — and swear to sacrifice the first living thing that I 
should meet on my return from victory. 

Hon. D. S. Dickinson, 1861. 



WHAT IS OUR COUNTRY. 

The majesty of the people is here to-day to sustain the 
majesty of the Constitution — and I come, a wanderer from 
the far Pacific, to record my oath along with yours of the 
great Empire State. The hour for conciliation has passed, 
the gathering for battle is at hand ; and the country requires 
that every man shall do his duty. Fellow citizens, what is 
that country ? Is it the' soil on which we tread ? Is it the 
gathering of familiar faces? Is it our luxury, and pomp, 
and pride ? Nay, more than these, is it power, and might, 
and majesty alone ? No, our country is more, far more than 
all these. The country which demands our love, our cour- 
age, our devotion, our heart's blood, is more than all these — 
our country is the history of our fathers — our country is the 
tradition of our mothers — our country is past renown — our 
country is present pride and power — our country is future 
hope and destiny — our country is greatness, glory, truth, con- 
stitutional liberty — above all, freedom forever! These are 
the watch-words under which Ave fight; and we will shout 
them out till the stars appear in the sky, in the stormiest 
hour of battle. I have said that the hour for conciliation is 
past. It may return ; but not to-morrow, nor next week. 
It will return when that tattered flag is avenged. It will 
return when rebel traitors are taught obedience and submis- 
sion. It will return when the rebellious confederates are 
taught that the North, though peaceable, are not cowardly — ■ 
though forbearing, are not fearful. That hour of concilia- 
tion will come back when again the ensign of the Republic 
will stream over every rebellious fort of every Confederate 



142 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

State. Then, as of old, the ensign of the pride and power, 
and dignity and majesty, and the peace of the Republic will 
return. Hon. K D. JBcdcer, 1861. 



A CALL TO ARMS. 



Young men of the United States — you are told this is not 
to be a war of aggression. In one sense, that is true ; in an- 
other, not. We have committed aggression upon no man. 
In all the broad land, in their rebel nest, in their traitors' 
camp, no truthful man can rise and say that he has ever been 
disturbed, though it be but for a single moment, in life, lib- 
erty, estate, character or honor. The day they began this 
false, unnatural, wicked warfare, their lives were more secure, 
their property more secure, by us — not by themselves, but 
by us — guarded far more securely than any people ever have 
had their lives and property secured from the beginning of 
the world. We have committed no oppression, have broken 
no compact, have exercised no unholy power; have been 
loyal, moderate, constitutional, and just. We are a majority 
of the Union, and we will govern our own Union, within 
our own Constitution, in our own way. We are all Demo- 
crats. We are all Republicans. We acknowledge the sov- 
ereignty of the people within the rule of the Constitution ; 
and,^nder that Constitution and beneath that nag, let trai- 
tors beware. 

In this sense, then, we are not for a war of aggression. I 
propose to do now as we did in Mexico — conquer j)eace. I 
propose to go to Washington and beyond. I do not design 
to remain silent, supine, inactive — na}?", fearful — until they 
gather their battalions and advance their host upon our bor- 
ders or in our midst. I would meet them upon the threshold, 
and there, in the very State of their power, in the very at- 
mosphere of their treason, I propose that the people of this 
Union dictate to these rebels the terms of peace. It may 
take thirty millions ; it may take three hundred millions. 
What then ? We 'have it. Loyally, nobly, grandly do the 
merchants of New York respond to the appeals of the 
Government. It may cost us seven thousand men. It may 
cost us seventy-five thousand men in battle; it may cost us 
seven hundred and fifty thousand men. What then ? We 
have them. The blood of every loyal citizen of this Gov- 
ernment is dear to us. My sons, my kinsmen, the young 
men who have grown up beneath my eye and beneath my 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 143 

care, they are all dear to me; but if the country's destiny, 
glory, tradition, greatness, freedom, government, written 
constitutional government — the only hope of a free people — 
demand it, let them all go. I am not here now to speak 
timorous words of peace, but to kindle the spirit of manly, 
determined war. I speak in the midst of the Empire State, 
amid scenes of past suffering and past glory ; the defences of 
the Hudson above me ; the battle-field of Long Island before 
me, and the statue of Washington in my very face — the bat- 
tered and unconquered flag of Sumter waving in his hand, 
which I can almost imagine now trembles with the excite- 
ment of battle. And as- 1 speak, I say my mission here to- 
day is to kindle the heart of New York for Avar — short, sud- 
den, bold, determined, forward war. The Seventh Regiment 
has gone. Let seventy and seven more follow. Of old, said 
a great historian, beneath the banner of the cross, Europe 
precipitated itself upon Asia. Beneath the banner of the 
Constitution let the men of the Union precipitate themselves 
upon disloyal, rebellious confederate States. 

Son. E. D. Baker, 1861. 



THE INSULT TO THE FLAG. 

Let no man underrate the dangers of this controversy. 
Civil war, for the best of reasons upon the one side, and the 
worst upon the other, is always dangerous to liberty — aTw%-s 
fearful, always bloody; but, fellow-citizens, there are yet 
worse things than fear, than doubt and dread, and danger 
and blood. Dishonor is worse. Perpetual anarchy is worse. 
States forever commingling and forever severing are worse. 
Traitors and secessionists are worse. To have star after star 
blotted out — to have stripe after stripe obscured — to have 
glory after glory dimmed — to have our women weep and our 
men blush for shame throughout generations yet to come — 
that and these are infinitely worse than blood. Again, once 
more, when we march, let us not march for revenge. We 
.have, as yet, something to punish, but nothing or very little 
to revenge. The President says : " There are wrongs to be 
redressed, already long enough endured." And we march 
to battle and to victory because we do not choose to endure 
this wrong any longer. They are wrongs not merely against 
us; not against you, Mr. President ; not against me; but 
against our sons and against our grandsons that surround us. 
They are wrongs against our ensign ; they are wrongs against 



144 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

our Union : they are wrongs against our Constitution ; they 
are wrongs against human hope and human freedom ; and if 
it be revenge to right these wrongs, so let it be ; as Burke 
says, " it is a wild justice at last," and we will revenge them. 
Even while I speak, the object of your meeting is accom- 
plished ; upon the wings of the lightning it goes out through- 
out the world that New York, the very heart of a great city, 
with her crowded thoroughfares, her merchants, her manu- 
factures, her artists — that New York, by one hundred thou- 
sand of her people, declares to the country and to the world, 
that she will sustain the Government to the last dollar in her 
treasury — to the last drop of your blood. The national ban- 
ners leaning from ten thousand windows in your city to-day 
proclaim your affection and reverence for the Union. You 
will gather in battalions, 

Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms, 
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms ; 

and as you gather, every omen of present concord and ulti- 
mate peace will surround you. The ministers of religion, 
the priests of literature, the historians of the past, the illus- 
trators of the present, capital, science, art, invention, discov- 
eries, the works of genius — all these will attend us in our 
march, and we will conquer. And if, from the far Pacific, a 
voice feebler than the feeblest murmur upon its shore may be 
heard to give you courage and hope in the contest, that voice 
is spurs to-day ; and if a man whose hair is gray, who is well 
nigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, may pledge him- 
self on such an occasion and in such an audience, let me say, 
as my last word, that when, amid sheeted fire and flame, I 
saw and led the hosts of New York as they charged in con- 
test upon a foreign soil for the honor of your flag ; so again, 
if Providence shall will it, this feeble hand "shall draw a 
sword, never yet dishonored — not to fight for distant honor 
in a foreign land, but to fight for country, for home, for law, 
for government, for constitution, for right, for freedom, for 
humanity, and in the hope that the banner of my country 
may advance, and wheresoever that banner waves there glory 
may pursue aud freedom be established. 

Hon. M D.JSaJcer, 1861. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 145 



ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 

Young- Gextlemen : — I salute you as trained athletes, 
just entering upon the strifes of life. If we have at all suc- 
ceeded with you in our efforts at education, you have learned 
how to use your faculties. It will now devolve on you to 
make their use subservient to the highest aims and the 
largest good. So only shall you prove yourselves worthy of 
your alma wmter-^-worthy of your glorious country. 

You put on the garment of manhood, and assiime its obli- 
gations, in the midst of the most wanton, wicked, unprovoked, 
and unpardonable rebellion that has been witnessed in the 
annals of the human race. It has no parallel but in the re- 
bellion of the fallen angels; and it has the same source — dis- 
appointed ambition and malignant hate. Against the most 
beneficent Government, the most equal laws, and a system 
carrying within itself a recognized and peaceful mode of ad- 
justing every real or imaginary wrong or hardship, a portion 
of the people of the United States — the least civilized, the 
least educated, the least industrious, without a single wrong 
specified on the part of the national Government — have risen 
in rebellion, robbing its treasuries, and even its hospitals; 
firing upon and treading under foot the flag of our country ; 
menacing its capital with armed hordes, led by the double- 
dyed traitors, who, educated at the cost of the nation, and 
sworn to defend its laws, have deserted in the hour of need 
and turned their arms against their nursing mother; and 
appealed to all the scoundrels of the world to come and take 
service under the rebel flag, against the commerce of the 
United States. 

Honor, Loyalty, Truth, stood aghast for a while, incredu- 
lously in the presence of this enormous crime ; but when 
Sumter fell, the free people of this nation rose — yes ! rose as 
no like uprising has been witnessed before — and now who 
shall stay the avenging arm? Who, with traitor lips shall 
talk of compromise^ or with shaking knees clamor for peace ? 
Compromise with what ? — peace with whom ? 

It is no question of this or that system of policy — of free 
trade or tariff — of slavery or anti-slavery — it is a question of 
existence. To be or not to be — it is all there. There is no 
such thing as half being and half not being. Either we are 
a nation or a band of anarchical outlaws. A grand continen- 
tal Anglo-Saxon Republic, such as our fathers made, one and 
indivisible, E Pluribus Uhum, under a Constitution equal 
for all, and supreme over all — or an accidental assemblage 



146 THE PATETOTIC SPEAKEE. 

of petty, jealous, barbarous, warring tribes, who acknowledge 
no law but the sword, and from among whom the sword will 
not depart. 

My young friends, you enter upon life at the very moment 
this great question is under the issue of war. Shrink not 
back from it. We must be decided now and forever. The 
baleful doctrine of secession must be finally and absolutely 
renounced. The poor quibble of double allegiance must be 
disavowed. An American — and not a ISTew Yorker, nor a 
Virginian — is the noble title by which we are to live, and 
which you, my young friends, must, in your respective 
spheres, contribute to make live, whatever it may cost in 
blood and money. 

Go- forth, then, my young friends — go forth as citizens of 
the great continental American Republic — to which your 
first, your constant, your latest hopes in life should attach — 
and abating no jot of obedience to municipal or State au- 
thority within the respective limits of each — bear yourselves 
always, and every where, as Americans — as fellow-country- 
men of Adams, and Ellsworth, and Jay, and Jefferson, and 
Carroll, and Washington, and Pinckney — as heirs of the 
glories of Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, and Monmouth, and 
Yorktown, and Eutaw Springs, and New Orleans, and suffer 
no traitor hordes to despoil you of so rich an inheritance or 
so grand and glorious a country. 

Chas. King, Z.Z.D., 1861. 



SEPARATION AS A MEANS OF PEACE. 

"Why should we not," it is asked, "admit the claims of 
the seceding States, acknowledge their independence, ana 
put an end at once to the war?" "Why should we not?" 
I answer the question by asking another : " Why should we?" 
What have we to gain, what to hope from the pursuit of that 
course ? Peace ? But we were at peace before. Why are 
we not at peace now ? The North has not waged the war, 
it has been forced on us in self defence ; and if, while they 
had the Constitution and the laws, the Executive, Congress 
and the Courts, all controlled by themselves, the South, dis- 
satisfied with legal protections and constitutional remedies, 
has grasped the sword, can North and South hope to live in 
peace, when the bonds of Union are broken, and amicable 
means of adjustment are repudiated ? Peace is the very last 
thing which secession, if recognized, will give us; it will give 
us nothing but a hollow truce — time to prepare the means 

/ 



SPEECHES OE THE TIMES. 147 

of new outrages. It is in its very nature a perpetual cause 
of hostility ; an eternal never-cancelled letter of marque and 
reprisal, an everlasting proclamation of border-war. How 
can peace exist, when all the causes of dissension shall be in- 
definitely multiplied ; when unequal revenue laws shall have 
led to a gigantic system of smuggling ; when a general stam- 
pede of slaves shall take place along the border, with no 
thought of rendition, and all the thousand causes of mutual 
irritation shall be called into action, on a frontier of 1,500 
miles not marked by natural Jboundaries and not subject to a 
common jurisdiction or a mediating power ? We did believe 
in peace, fondly, credulously, believed that, cemented by the 
rniid umpirage of the Federal Union, it might dwell forever 
beneath the folds of the star-spangled banner, and the sacred 
shield of a common nationality. That was the great arcanum 
of policy ; that was the state mystery into which men and 
angels desired to look ; hidden from ages, but revealed to us : 

" WMch kings and prophets waited for, 
And sought, but never found :" 

a family of States independent of each other for local con- 
cerns, united under one Government for the management of 
common interests and the prevention of internal feuds. 
There w^as no limit to the possible extension of such a sys- 
tem. It had already comprehended half of North America, 
and it might, in the course of time, have folded the continent 
in its peaceful, beneficent embrace. We fondly dreamed 
that, in the lapse of ages, it would have been extended till 
half the western hemisphere had realized the vision of uni- 
versal, perpetual peace. From that dream we have been 
rudely startled by the army of ten thousand armed men in 
Charleston Harbor, and the glare of eleven batteries bursting 
on the torn sky of the Union, like the comet which, at this 
very moment, burns " in the Arctic sky, and from his horrid 
lair shakes pestilence and war." 

If, for the frivolous reasons assigned, the seceding States 
have chosen to plunge into this gulf, while all the peaceful 
temperaments and constitutional remedies of the Union were 
w T ithin their reach, and offers of further compromise and ad- 
ditional guarantees were daily tendered them, what hope, 
w T hat possibility of peace can there be, when the Union is 
broken up, when, in addition to all other sources of deadly 
quarrel, a general exodus of the slave population begins, (as, 
beyond all question, it will,) and nothing but war remains 
for the settlement of controversies ? The Vice President of 



148 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

the new Confederacy states that it rests on slavery; but 
from its very nature it must rest equally on war ; eternal 
war, first between North and South, and then between the 
smaller fragments into which some of the disintegrated parts 
may crumble. The work of demons has already begun. 
Besides the hosts mustered for the capture or destruction of 
Washington, Eastern Virginia has let loose the dogs of war 
on the loyal citizens of Western Virginia ; they are straining 
in the leash in Maryland and Kentucky- Tennessee threatens 
to set a price on the head of her noble Johnson and his 
friends ; a civil war rages in Missouri. Why, in the name of 
heaven, has not Western Virginia, separated from Eastern 
Virginia by mountain ridges, by climate, by the course of 
her rivers, by the character of her population, and the nature 
of her industry, why has she not as good a right to stay in 
the Union, which she inherited from her Washington, as 
Eastern Virginia has to abandon it for the mushroom Confed- 
eracy forced upon her from Montgomery ? Are no rights 
sacred but those of rebellion ; no oaths binding but those 
taken by men already forsworn ; are liberty of thought, and 
speech, and action nowhere to be tolerated except on the 
part of those by whom laws are trampled under foot, arse- 
nals and mints plundered, governments warred against, and 
where their patriotic defenders are assailed by ferocious and 
murderous mobs ? — Edward Everett. 1861. 



SECESSION ESTABLISHING- A FOKEIGN POWEK. 

Consider the monstrous nature and reach of the preten- 
sions of secession in which we are expected to acquiesce ; 
nothing less than that the United States should allow a For- 
eign Power, by surprise, treachery, and violence, to possess 
itself of one-half of their territory, and all the public prop- 
erty and public establishments contained in it ; for if the 
Southern Confederacy is recognized, it becomes a foreign 
power, established along a curiously dove-tailed frontier of 
fifteen hundred miles, commanding some of the most impor- 
tant commercial and military positions and lines of commu- 
nication for travel and trade ; half the sea coast of the 
Union; the navigation of our Mediterranean Sea, (the Gulf 
of Mexico, one-third as large as the Mediterranean of Europe,) 
and, above all, the great arterial inlet into the heart of the 
Continent, through which its very life-blood pours its impe- 
rial tides. I say we are coldly summoned to surrender all 






SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 149 

this to a foreign power. Would we surrender it to England, 
to France, to Spain? Not an inch of it ; why, then, to the 
Southern Confederacy ? Would any other government on 
earth, unless compelled by the direst necessity, make such a 
surrender ? Does not France keep an army of one hundred 
thousand men in Algeria to prevent a few wandering tribes 
of Arabs, a recent conquest, from asserting their indepen- 
dence ? Did not England strain her resources to the utmost 
tension, to prevent the native kingdoms of Central India 
(civilized states two thousand years ago, while painted 
chieftains ruled the savage clans of ancient Briton) from 
reestablishing their sovereignty; and shall we be expected, 
without a struggle, to abandon a great integral part of the 
United States to a foreign power ? 

Let it be remembered, too, that in granting to the seced- 
ing States, jointly and severally, the right to leave the Union, 
we concede to them the right of resuming, if they please, 
their former allegiance to England, France and Spain. It 
rests with them, with any one of them, if the right of seces- 
sion is admitted, again to plant a European government side 
by side with that of the United States on the soil of Ameri- 
ca ; and it is by no means the most improbable upshot of this 
ill-starred rebellion, if allowed to prosper. Is this the Mon- 
roe doctrine, for which the United States have been contend- 

The disunion press in Virginia last year openly encour- 
aged the idea of a French protectorate, and her legislature 
has, I believe, sold out the James River canal, the darling 
enterprise of Washington, to a company in France supposed 
to enjoy the countenance of the Emperor. The seceding 
patriots of South Carolina were understood by the corres- 
pondent of the London " Times" to admit that they would 
rather be subject to a British prince, than to the Govern- 
ment of the United States. Whether they desire it or not, 
'the moment the seceders lose the protection of the United 
States, they hold their independence at the mercy of the 
powerful governments of Europe. If the navy of the ISTorth 
should withdraw its protection, there is not a southern 
State on the Atlantic or the Gulf, which might not be recol- 
onized by Europe, in six months after the outbreak of a for- 
eign war. — Edward Everett, 1861. 



150 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE GREAT ISSUE. 

Stjch, fellow-citizens, as I contemplate them, are the great 
issues before the country — nothing less, in a word, than 
whether the work of our noble fathers of the revolutionary 
and constitutional age shall perish or endure ; whether this 
great experiment in national polity, which binds a family of 
free republics in one united government — the most hopeful 
plan for combining the home-bred blessings of a small state 
with the stability and power of great empire — shall be 
treacherously and shamefully stricken down, in the moment 
of its most successful operation, or whether it shall be 
bravely, patriotically, triumphantly maintained. We wage 
no war of conquest and subjugation; we aim at nothing but 
to protect our loyal fellow-citizens, who, against fearful odds, 
are fighting the battles of the Union in the disaffected States, 
and to reestablish, not for ourselves alone, but for our delu- 
ded fellow-citizens, the mild sway of the Constitution and the 
laws. The result cannot be doubted. Twenty millions of 
freemen, forgetting their divisions, are rallying as one man in 
support of the righteous cause — their willing hearts and their 
strong hands, their fortunes and their lives, are laid upon the 
altar of the country. We contend for the great inheritance 
of constitutional freedom transmitted from our revolutionary 
fathers. We engage in the struggle forced upon us, with 
sorrow, as against our misguided brethren, but with high 
heart and faith, as we war for that Union which our sainted 
Washington commended to our dearest affections. The sym- 
pathy of the civilized world is on our side, and will join us 
in prayers to Heaven for the success of our arms. 

Edward Everett, 1861. 



THE SHIP OF STATE. 

Break up the Union of these States, because there are 
acknowledged evils in our system ? Is it so easy a matter, 
then, to make everything in the actual world conform exactly 
to the ideal pattern we have conceived in our minds of abso- 
lute right ? Suppose the fatal blow were struck, and the 
bonds which fasten together these States were severed, would 
the evils and mischiefs that would be experienced by those 
who are actually members of this vast republican community 
be all that would ensue? Certainly not. We are connected 
with the several nations and races of the world as no other 



\ 

SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 151 

people has ever been connected. "We have opened our doors 
and invited emigration to our soil from all lands. Our invi- 
tation has been accepted. Thousands have come at our bid- 
ding. Thousands more are on the way. Other thousands 
still are standing a-tiptoe on the shores of the old world, 
eager to find a passage to the land where bread may be had 
for labor, and where man is treated as man. In our political 
family almost all nations are represented. The several varie- 
ties of the race are here subjected to a social fusion, out of 
which Providence designs to form a " new man." 

We are in this way teaching the world a great lesson — 
namely, that-men of different languages, habits, manners and 
creeds, can live together, and vote together, and, if not pray 
and woi'ship together, yet in near vicinity, and do all in 
peace, and be, for certain purposes at least, one people. And 
is not this lesson of some value to the world, especially if we 
can teach it not by theory merely, but through a successful 
example ? Has not this lesson, thus conveyed, some connec- 
tion with the world's progress towards that far-off period to 
which the human mind looks for the fulfillment of its vision 
of a perfect social state ? It may safely be asserted that this 
Union could not be dissolved without disarranging and con- 
vulsing every part of the globe. lSTot in the indulgence of a 
vain confidence did our fathers build the ship of State, and 
launch it upon the waters. We will exclaim, in the noble 
words of one of our poets : 

" Thou, too, sail on, ship of State ! 
Sail on, Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging "breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what master laid thy keel, 
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock — 
"lis of the wave and not the rock ; 
Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale ! 
In spite of rock and tempest roar, - 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee I 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee— are all with thee !" 

Jiev. Wm. P. Lfimt, 1861. 



152 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 



TRIBUTE TO THE PEOPLE OP KANSAS, 

Here let me pause for a brief moment, to pay a merited 
tribute of respect arid gratitude to my constituency. Brave, 
devoted, uncompromising, heroic people ! proudly do I bear 
your honored name in these halls. Sir, theirs is the glory of 
these eventful days ; to them belongs the credit of having 
first interposed a barrier to check the progress of despotic 
rule on this continent. Kansas lost, we should now be hope- 
lessly, irretrievably subjugated. No such Republican party 
as we have seen would have been organized, or, if organized, 
it would have been speedily extinguished. Abraham Lincoln 
would not now be President; but rather some such slave- 
holder as Jefferson Davis. We should not now see a mighty 
host marshalled beyond the Potomac, with the cheering ensign 
of the Republic full high advanced, and the power of a legit- 
imate Government and twenty millions of free people behind 
it ; but we should see, instead of this, our Government trans- 
formed into a slaveholding despotism, as tyrannical as that 
of Nero, by means so indirect and insidious as hardly to be 
seen until the fatal work was finished. The people of Kan- 
sas took it upon themselves to act as a breakwater, which has 
had the effect to stay the advancing tide of slavery, and 
shield the continent from its sway. 

When I recur to my own intercourse with this gallant 
people, during the period of their terrible struggle in their 
attempts to subdue the wilderness — to make homes for them- 
selves where no home save that of the Indian, the elk, or the 
buffalo had ever existed before; considering their scanty re- 
sources, and the severities of life in a new country to which 
they were exposed ; and remembering their determined pur- 
pose in behalf of the cause at stake — how men and women 
alike surrendered with alacrity every personal interest and 
comfort and aspiration, and, with a sublime self-sacrifice, con- 
secrated themselves to the great service — the perils they en- 
countered, the extreme suffering they individually endured, 
and yet the true martyr spirit, the patience, the constancy, 
the fortitude they displayed throughout ; when I recall these 
things, and my own relations with them in those trying 
scenes — our mutual hopes and fears and efforts — the days 
when we were together in the council and the camp — the 
nights when, on the broad unsheltered prairie, or around rude 
and poor but hospitable firesides, we were consulting, delib- 
erating, arranging, resolving, and executing; and when I 
recall, as I never fail to do, the glorious memory of those 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 153 

who passed through the shadows of death in this august 
work — some "by sickness, others by privation, others again 
on the field of battle bravely fighting for liberty — I am 
moved with a feeling for which no expression would be appro- 
priate but the silent eloquence of tears. 

Sir, history has no brighter page in all her long annals 
than this. I say it without hesitancy, although I am the rep- 
resentative of Kansas on this floor. 

It is recorded of the chivalric but ill-fated people of Poland, 
that they stood up a shelter and breastwork for Europe 
against the swelling tide of infidel invaders, who, in the sev- 
enteenth century, threatened to overwhelm the civilization of 
that continent. A similar record will be made by the pen of 
impartial history, to testify to the transcendent heroism of my 
noble friends and constituency. It shall be said of them that, 
though few in number, limited in means, surrounded by ene- 
mies, far away from friends and reinforcements, they yet stood 
up, like a wall of adamant, against a power which wielded 
the resources of a nation of thirty millions of people, balked 
it of its prey, and saved a continent to freedom and civiliza- 
tion. Such is the inscription which the eternal page will 
bear in letters of light, regarding the transactions to which 
I refer ; and traditionary song and story shall celebrate to 
posterity the worth of their deeds which to-day may find no 
recognition." — Hon. Martin F. Conway, 1861. 



NATUEE OF THE UNION. 

Ouk fathers were, by every circumstance surrounding their 
homes, by their relations to each other, and by their own ex- 
pressed assent, oxe people ; separated, it is true, into thir- 
teen several municipal organizations, having in many res- 
pects diverse interests, but still not the less in mind, in heart, 
and in destiny, oa t e. 

You and I are descendants of that people ; and I ask you 
if it is not true — if you do not in your hearts knoio it to be 
true — that when, in the incipient stages of the revolution 
through which they were called to struggle, they magnani- 
mously put aside all local differences and jealousies, and with 
one impulse combined their efforts, their fortunes, their lives, 
their all, against fearful odds, for the redress of their common 
grievances at the hands of the mother country, and for the 
independence which they resolved to achieve, they evoked 
an already existing feeling of unity, and did, in the very es- 



> 



154 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



sence of the term, form a full, unreserved, and practical Union 
of the people, intended by themselves to be perpetual? 
Did they not, as perfectly as any people ever did, constitute 
and declare themselves a single and undivided nation ? Is 
there in all history an instance of such a union among a peo- 
ple who did not feel themselves to be, in every important 
particular, the same people ? Why, even before the Union 
was a fact in history, the feeling in the North in reference to 
it was expressed by James Otis, one of the leading patriots 
of Massachusetts, in the Convention of 1765, in the hope that 
a Union would be formed, which should "foiit and work to- 
gether into the very blood and bones of the original system 
every region as fast as settled /" and from distant South 
Carolina, great-hearted Christopher Gadsden answered baek 
— " There ought to be no New England man, no New 
Yorker known on the continent, but all of us Americans," 
And in the very hour of the Union's birth throes, Patrick 
Henry flashed upon the Congress of 1774, these lightning 
words : "All America is thrown into one mass. Where 
are your landmarks — your boundaries of Colonies f They 
are all thrown down. The distinctions between Virginians, 
Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New JEnglanders, are 
no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." 
And when, after the Union was a recorded and mighty fact 
in history, the united people, through their Congress, organ- 
ized the first form of government for the new-born nation, 
they solemnly wrote down in the articles of their confedera- 
tion, " The Union shall be perpetual." 

C. D. Drake, 1861. 



INSINCEKITY OF SECESSIONISTS. 

So far as the doctrine of State Sovereignty is used to sus- 
tain the right of secession, it is to my mind apparent that its 
supporters in the South do not themselves believe in it. If 
there is a reserved right of secession, paramount to the Con- 
stitution, it must have existed when the Union was formed ; 
for it has not been acquired or granted since. If it did exist 
then, the Union was entered into with a tacit understanding 
that there was such a right. If entered into with such an 
understanding, then a State seceding would be guilty of no 
legal wrong -towards the other States ; it would do only what 
it had a light to do. So doing, it would have no reason to 
regard itself as an enemy of the remaining States, or the na- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 155 

tional Government as an eigfcy to it ; and would have just 
cause of complaint against either, for taking a hostile attitude 
to it for seceding. But what do we find in the seceded 
States ? Instantly upon passing their ordinances of secession, 
and in some instances in advance of it, they, by their acts, 
proclaim themselves the enemies of the United States in every 
way which could signalize them as -such. They proceed to 
org-anize a Confederate Government, to raise armies, to pro- 
vide for their support, to create a navy, and to seize the ar- 
mories, forts, navy-yards, docks, custom-houses, mints, money, 
and all other property of the United States within their reach; 
they overpower and capture the United States troops, wher- 
ever they find them in detached bodies too small for resistance, 
and hold them as prisoners of war ; they fire upon a vessel 
under the national flag, and in the Government service; 
they beleaguer, and finally bombard, and reduce a national 
fort, held by a braA^e, half-starVed garrison, one hundredth 
part as strong as the assailing host ; and all for what reason? 
They were not assailed by the Government on account of 
their secession. No troops were marched against them, no 
navy closed their ports, no mails were stopped within their 
borders ; they were, for months after their secession, as they 
asked to be, " let alone y" — let alone to commit every form of 
aggression upon the nation, without retaliation or resistance : 
why did they take the attitude of enemies ? If, in seceding, 
they exercised only a reserved right, they did a lawful act, 
and had no occasion to wage war upon the Government they 
had renounced ; nor had the Government occasion, for the 
act of secession, to attack them. Why, then, did they wage 
the war ? 'Without the least doubt, because they knew that 
their claim of a reserved right in a State to dissolve its con- 
nection with the Union at its will, was a flimsy and false pre- 
tence, which they themselves had not the slightest faith in ; 
and because, veil it however they might from their people, 
under the guise of State sovereignty, the leaders knew that 
secession was rebellion, and that, sooner or later, rebellion 
must be met by force. In their own consciousness, therefore, 
as exhibited in their acts, the pretext of a constitutional 
right of secession, is a fallacy and a falsehood. As such the 
onlooking world regards it, and the intelligence of mankind 
scouts and condemns it. — Charles D. Drake, 1861. 



156 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

m 

NATIONAL AND STATE ALLEGIANCE. 
I. 

Every individual of every nation, barbarian or civilized, 
is bound by allegiance to the supreme authority which pre- 
sides over that nation, whether it be king, emperor, grand 
duke, sultan, tycoon, chief or constitutional republican gov- 
ernment. Society without allegiance is anarchy ; govern- 
ment without allegiance is a mockery ; people without alle- 
giance are a mob. 

He, who looks below the surface has no difficulty in seeing 
that the doctrine of primary State allegiance, which was pro- 
mulgated by South Carolina in 1832, and, though exploded 
by her own Court of Appeals in 1834, has since been dili- 
gently inculcated through the entire South, and was put 
forth by the Governor of this State in his recent treasonable 
proclamation of war against the United States, lies at the 
bottom, like a subterranean fire, burning out the popular 
heart, and, with earthquake throes, upheaving the founda- 
tions of our national institutions. It is no more true that 
States exist, than that, but for this* shallow heresy, they 
would not now have been arrayed against the national Gov- 
ernment. It aj)peals to home attachments, to State pride, to 
self interest, to local jealousy, to sectional animosity, to 
every passional feeling hostile to a broad and patriotic 
nationality ; and, like a mighty lens, it focalizes the whole upon 
a single petty point, burning to ashes the tie of paramount 
allegiance to the Government of the nation, loosing the war- 
ring elements, and bringing in chaos again. With him who 
takes this doctrine to his soul, true, generous, self-sacrificing 
love of country is as impossible as for one born blind to de- 
scribe a rainbow ; his State is his country, and his American 
citizenship is a bauble compared with his citizenship there. 
Point him to the flag of his country, and he sees only the one 
star which typifies his State; and every other is to that, ray- 
less and cold. Talk to him of the nation, and he replies, 
" South Carolina." Speak of national prosperity and hap- 
piness, and he responds " the Old Dominion !" Refer to the 
honor of the nation, and he shouts "Mississippi!" "Arkan- 
sas !" " Texas !" Lead his mind where you will, and like a 
cat he always returns to the particular spot he inhabits, and 
which he calls his State ! Ever regarding that, he raises not 
his head to behold the glorious country, which claims his 
first devotion as an American, his highest love as a freeman. 



: SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 157 

II. 

Allegiance in its proper sense, can be exacted only by 
the supreme power, which, in this land, is the Government 
created by the Constitution of the United States. This al- 
legiance may not be put on and off, to suit the convenience 
and whims of the individual, as he may assume or cast off 
State citizenship. Once due, it is always due, unless the 
national Government consent to its renunciation. The native- 
born citizen owes it, from the cradle to the grave; the 
naturalized foreigner, from the moment he acquires citizen- 
ship till his death. N"o such obligation exists towards a 
State. A State's power over any citizer begins only with 
his entrance upon her territory, and ends with his departure 
from it. Will it be said that he who was once a citizen of 
Florida, but removed thence to Missouri, where he has since 
resided, may now be called back by Florida to fight her bat- 
tles, because of his former citizenship there ? No sane man 
will hold such a doctrine ; and yet if Florida may not do 
that, there' is no allegiance to a State, except in the sense of 
obedience to its laws and authorities while in it. But the 
United States have an undoubted and indestructible right to 
call forth their citizens from every spot of their domain, to 
defend and uphold in battle the honor and power of the 
nation ; for no citizen can find a place where the title of al- 
legiance does not bind him to the Constitution and flag of 
his country. 

The citizen owes allegiance in return for protection by his 
government, and that protection is his lawful right, wherever 
in the world he may be. It was the certainty and swiftness 
of Rome's vindication of the rights, of her citizens, that gave 
such power everywhere to the simple words, " I am a 
Roman citizen ; and this hour, among all civilized nations, 
to be known as an American citizen, is a passport and pro- 
tection. Why? Because the United States are known 
throughout the world, as able and ready to protect their 
citizens. But on another continent than this, what would it 
avail to be known as a citizen of any State of the Union ? 
Who, in a foreign land? would, in extremity, proclaim him- 
self a citizen of one of the States, when his State has no 
power to protect him or to avenge his wrongs, except 
through the Government of the Union ? And yet men prate 
of a first allegiance to their State ! 

In sober verity, there is in this whole dogma of State al- 
legiance an absurdity so glaring, a perversion of the true 
principles of constitutional law so flagrant, a delusion so 



158 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

pitiful and yet so monstrous, that it is a world's wonder that 
men of sense could any where be found to inculcate or even 
countenance a doctrine, that any school boy might refute, and 
which a jurist or a statesman would regard as worthy only of 
ridicule and contempt. — Charles D. Drake, 1861. 



THE EIGHT OF RE VOL TJTI0N. 

If it be asked, may not a people throw off their allegiance, 
and make for themselves a new government ? the answer is, 
of course, they may. The right of revolution is inherent in 
every people ; but it is ultima ratio — the last resort, and is 
not a remedy which any people may, without awful crime, 
needlessly appeal to. If it be not in vain to hold up the 
words and example of our Revolutionary fathers, let us learn 
from them when to take the sword ; lest, taking it rashly 
and without cause, we perish by the sword. 

Read their Declaration of Independence, and ponder these 
words : 

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long 
established should not be changed for light and transient 
causes ; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that 
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suffera- 
ble, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which 
they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and 
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a 
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their 
right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to 
provide new guards for their future security. Such has been 
the patient sufferance of these Colonies, and such is now the 
necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems 
of government. The history of the present King of Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, 
all having, in direct object, the establishment of an abso- 
lute tyranny over these States. To prove this let facts 
be submitted to a candid world." 

Now, my friends, upon the principles of that Declaration, 
and in such an exigency as it portrays, I could be a revolu- 
tionist; he who would resort to revolution on any other 
principles is an anarchist, a social Ishmaelite, whose hand is 
against every man ; and every man's hand ought to be against 
him. And yet, one of the latent elements of mischief at the 
present time in this State, is the wide-spread assumption 
among intelligent men, of the right of forcible revolution, 



'S' 






SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 159 

whenever the impulse, well or ill directed, may seize any 
portion of the people. 

Against a doctrine so destructive of every form of sound 
and stable government, I appeal to the wisdom, the con- 
science, and the hopes of the people. I protest against it, as 
the unpardonable sin against human liberty, throwing wide 
open the flood-gates of beastly license, and sweeping away 
in indiscriminate destruction all that we have ever loved or 
valued, and all that could make us, or our children after us, 
good or great, or even decent in the eyes of mankind. 

Charles D. Drake, 1861. 



. PUBLIC OPINION THE ARBITER OF GRIEVANCES. 

As, in a republic, the source of power is the people, the 
very first principle of every such government is, that public* 
opixiox, not revolutionary violence, shall be invoked to rec- 
tify errors and redress grievances. Out whole system rests 
upon the popular will, and if that be perverted, the remedy 
is in restoring it to rectitude, not in destroying the system. 
Every State becomes a part of the Union under a solemn 
pledge — not, to be sure, written down, but none the less 
binding because implied — to look to that Constitution, and 
those laws and tribunals for the redress of every wrong, and 
the support of every right. Conflicts of interest and opin- 
ion are inevitable ; but every part of the nation agrees that 
the will of the majority, constitutionally expressed, shall gov- 
ern; for an appeal to the people is ever open, and the major- 
ity of to-day may — as it has done a thousand times — dwindle 
into a minority to-morrow. The assertion, therefore, of a 
right of armed revolution against the decision of the major- 
ity, is a violation so fearful of the vital principle of a repub- 
lic, and a blow so deadly at the peace of the nation, the 
integrity of the Constitution, and the perpetuity of popular 
governments, as almost to crush the heart of the patriot un- 
der an infinite weight of dismay and despair. 
■ When, therefore, within fifteen days after the vote of the 
electoral colleges were cast for Mr. Lincoln, and two months 
and a-half before he could be inaugurated, and while he was 
yet as powerless as a child for harm, even though he had 
been as full of evil intent as Satan himself, the State of South 
Carolina raised the war-cry of rebellion, and announced her 
rejection of the authority of the Constitution, and her sepa- 
ration from the Union, an offence was registered in heaven's 



160 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

chancery, before which all preceding outbreaks of popular 
wickedness fall into immeasurable insignificance. And when, 
from time to time, ten other States followed her lead, and 
raised the standard of revolt against a Government so mild, 
so paternal, so beneficent, that their people hardly knew 
where there was such a Government, except by its blessings, 
the world could only gaze in blank amazement at a sacrilege, 
which threatened to extinguish the great beacon light of hu- 
man freedom forever, and to consign America to boundless 
and hopeless ruin. 

And the world asks — what justification is pleaded for this 
incredible outrage against the nation, and, indeed, against 
the human race? And the world will have the question 
answered. It is in vain to reply that it is not worth while 
to inquire who is in the wrong— it is worth while. When a 
son kills his father, all men inquire the cause ; and they in- 
quire on until they know it ; for every individual is concerned 
to understand the motive for such a deed. And so, when a 
stupendous rebellion arrays itself against the Government, 
which the world knows to be the least exacting and the least 
burdensome of all the governments existing on the earth, 
mankind demands, why? and mankind will be answered. 

Charles B. Br alee, 1861. 



FALSE PRETENCES FOR SECESSION. 

The great count in the indictment is the election of a 
president by the votes of one section of the Union; and this 
is true. But how came he to be elected? This question in- 
stantly forces itself upon the mind. For thirty years the 
anti-slavery agitation had been in progress, without getting 
control of the Government ; and only four years before, the 
Republican party had been defeated in a tremendous strug- 
gle; how did it secure a triumph in 1860? It is as certain 
to be recorded in history, as that the history of that year 
shall ever be written, that the action of the South itself was 
one of the immediate and prominent causes— -if not the great 
cause — of that triumph. No fact is more undeniable, than 
that the Democratic party was the only one to which the 
country could look for numerical strength to avert that re- 
sult; except that other fact, known to you all, thai the cotton 
States broke up that party, and thereby rendered the defeat 
of Mr. Lincoln impossible. At the very moment when the 
anti-slavery agitation seemed to be approaching victory, and 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 161 

when it was the stern duty of every man in the opposing 
ranks to forget all minor differences, and stand like a rock 
against its further progress, those States deliberately aban- 
doned their former position, proclaimed principles which they 
had previously denied with emphasis, seceded from the party, 
and themselves opened the way for the result upon which 
they intended to base their subsequent secession from the 
Union. Secession was the great object they had aimed at 
for nearly a third of a century. The evidence of a deep-laid 
and long-cherished conspiracy among them to destroy the 
Union is abundant and conclusive. The " proper moment" 
to "precipitate the cotton States into a revolution," of which 
Mr. Yancey wrote, in 1858 — the proper moment to "pull a 
temple down that has been built three quarters of a century, 
and clear the rubbish away and reconstruct another," as was 
proclaimed by a member of the South Carolina convention — - 
the proper moment to let slip the dogs of war among chil- 
dren of the same fathers and people of the same nation — the 
proper moment, in a word, to consummate the treason which 
had been festering and growing for thirty years — was seen 
to have arrived ; and the plotters were not slow to seize it. 
They had already proclaimed that the election of a President 
by the Republican party would be a sufficient cause for a 
dissolution of the Union, and they set themselves to the 
work of making that election certain, by their own disrup- 
tion of the only party that had the numbers to prevent it. 
And they succeeded to a miracle. Never was game of du- 
plicity and treachery better played. They betrayed their 
previously professed principles, their party, and their coun-, 
.try, all at once; and at the moment of consummating the 
crowning act of their sacrilege, they turn to the world, with 
an air of injured innocence, and appeal to mankind to justify 
a rebellion based on the success of their own most devilish 
machinations. 

But were it otherwise — had they done all that men could 
do to prevent the election of a sectional President, and such 
had, nevertheless, been elected, on the principles alleged by 
South Carolina in her declaration, or even on worse — it was 
still an ascertained and indisputable fact, before her seces- 
sion, that in both houses of the present Congress there 
would be a majority against him, if all the States should 
stand firm, and retain their representation there. In that 
case, Mr. Lincoln would have been this day, and' certainly for 
two years to come, the possessor of a barren power, except 
as to official patronage, and utterly impotent to impress a 
single principle of his party on the Government, or to touch 



162 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

in a single point the institution of slavery. But what was 
this to the schemers of treason ? Their work was to destroy 
the Union, not to defend slavery. If they stopped to do the 
latter, the former would be left undone ; if they used their 
constitutional power to protect slavery, or to obtain guaran- 
tees, the Constitution would be preserved ; so they trampled 
upon the Constitution, abjured their allegiance, snapped the 
bond of brotherhood, and seized the sword to redress a 
grievance which they themselves designedly aided to pro- 
duce ! I need not ask if history has a parallel to this. It 
stands out in hideous deformity, the monster iniquity of 
all the ages, whose dark, deep stain ages cannot wash away. 

Charles D. Brake, 1861. 



THE CAUSES OF SECESSION. 

The review I have taken of the causes I have assigned for 
secession, reduces them to three only which have foundation 
in fact — the election of a President by a sectional vote, the 
personal liberty laws of four States, and the exclusion of the 
South from the common territory. As to the first, nothing 
more need be said : it was produced by the act of the South 
itself; let not the South complain. As to the second, it is 
too insignificant as a justification of rebellion, to deserve a 
moment's notice. Concerning the last, it is clear to me as 
the sunlight around us that it is a shallow subterfuge, and 
that the. South, in reality, cared nothing about the Territo- 
ries. If the right to take their slaves there was of such value 
as, when interfered with, to justify them to their own con- 
sciences in revolutionary violence, can they tell — can any man 
tell — why they should take a step which would inevitably 
exclude slavery from the Territories forever ? Did they be- 
lieve that an institution could be planted there by war which 
they could not carry there in time of peace ? Did they hope 
that, with sword in hand, they could wrest from the Gov- 
ernment a vast domain, from which the people of the North 
should be shut out, except upon such terms as the South 
might, as an independent power, prescribe ? Did they sup- 
pose that fear would grant what justice and equity refused ? 
Did they imagine that after seceding from the Union, and 
thereby renouncing all rights flowing from the Union, they 
could obtain more easy access to the Territories ? No : they 
knew that secession from the Union was secession from the 
common property of the Union, as well as from its Constitu- 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 163 

tion. It is therefore manifest, that they did not secede be- 
cause the Territories were closed, or were threatened to be 
closed against them ; for, by seceding, they barred and bolted 
the gates of the Territories against themselves forever. 

Charles' D. Drake, 1861. 



THE DUTY OF DEFENDING THE UNION. 

My countrymen, we are in the midst of an unnatural and 
consuming civil war. Some four hundred thousand men are 
under arms, and we know not at what moment the land may 
tremble under the shock of contending hosts. It is a sight 
to make the world weep. The cause of humanity, the claims 
of freedom, the spirit of Christianity, all demand that this 
terriblejconflict should be stayed. But, from the depths of a 
troubled spirit, I ask, how can it be f A part of the nation 
rebels — declares its revolt irreconcilable — announces that it 
asks no compromise or reconstruction, will consider none, 
even though permitted to name its own terms — defies the 
power of the Nation — wages war upon the national Govern- 
ment, and cries out, " All we ask is to be let alone !" 
How can they be let alone without destroying the Union and 
the Constitution ? If any man will tell me that, I will say, 
Let them alone. With unequalled skill in raising false issues, 
the secessionists in our midst labor to fan the flame of rebel- 
lion here, by impressing upon the minds of all within the 
reach of their influence, that the controversy of the revolting 
States is with Abraham Lincoln; when those States are 
in arms against the supreme constitutional authority of the 
nation. Abraham Lincoln, fulfilling his sworn duty to 
protect the Constitution, is to them a demon of darkness ; 
Jeff. Davis, striking deadly blows at that Constitution, 
which he has time and again sworn to support, is an angel 
of light. They profess immaculate loyalty with their 
tongues, but they are in their hearts as traitorous as Bene- 
dict Arnold. They denounce in unmeasured terms the mili- 
tary preparations of the Government to meet this rebellion, 
and exalt the insurgents as patriots, armed to defend their 
families and their firesides ; when not a soldier would have 
been added to the regular army, or a regiment marched 
southward, but for a revolt, aiming at the entire demolition 
of the Constitution, and the seizure of the Government by 
armed usurpation. All these are but the artful shifts of trea- 
son, to sustain its desperate cause. I despise and reject the 



164 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

whole brood of them. I stand by the Constitution" op 
the United States ; and when it is threatened with de- 
struction, I no more stop to inquire who is President, than, 
if the police of my city were engaged in quelling a riot, I 
would higgle about who is chief of police. The question is : 
Where is constitutional authority? He who arms himself to 
subvert that authority, is, by the law of God and man, a 
rebel and a traitor, no matter who holds office; and if any 
man can find any other way to deal with him than with the 
weapons he himself has chosen, let him point it out; — I know 
of none. Before God, I take no pleasure in the necessity 
which demands such a resort. All my instincts and princi- 
ples are against bloodshed ; but no rebellion ever was put 
down without it ; and this can hardly expect to be an excep- 
tion. Upon its instigators must rest all the awful conse- 
quences of .their appeal to arms. They have challenged the 
combat, and it lies not in their mouths, or in those of their 
aiders or abettors here to complain that the Government de- 
fends itself by extraordinary, or even by unconstitutional 
means. Had such an attack been made upon it by a foreign 
foe without being repelled, the nation would have stood dis- 
graced before the world forever : if this rebellious assault be 
not resisted by all the power of the loyal portion of the nation, 
shall we meet any other fate? It is, then, no spirit of malice 
or vindictiveness which justifies the Government in self-pro- 
tection by arms. The simple alternative is, government 
or anarchy. The latter would destroy our freedom, per- 
haps forever, and blight us with a perpetual curse. We 
are lost, if our Constitution is overthrown. Thenceforward 
we may bid farewell to liberty. Never were truer or greater 
words uttered by an American statesman, than when Daniel 
Webster closed his great speech in defence of the Constitution, 
nearly thirty years ago, with that sublime declaration — " Lib- 
erty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever." 
Union gave us liberty ; disunion will take it away. He who 
strikes at the Union, strikes at the heart of the nation. 
Shall not the nation defend its life ? And when the children 
of the Union come to its rescue, shall they be denounced ? 
And if denounced, will they quail before the mere breath of 
the Union's foes ? For one, I shrink not from any words of 
man, save those which would justly impute to me disloyalty 
to the Union and the Constitution. My country is all to me ; 
but it is no country without the Constitution which has ex- 
alted and glorified it. For the preservation of that Union 
I shall not cease to struggle, and my life-long prayer will be, 
God save the American Union ! — Charles D. Drake, 1861. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 165 



MARTIAL LAW AND GEN, JACKSON, 

The impression is sought to oe made on the public mind, 
that this is the first and only case where the power of declar- 
ing martial law has been exercised. I have shown-'that there 
is one tenfold more striking that occurred during our struggle 
for independence. Is this the first time that persons in the 
United States have been placed under martial law ? In 1815, 
when New Orleans was about to be sacked, when a foreign 
foe was upon the soil of Louisiana, New Orleans was put 
under martial law, and Judge Hall was made a prisoner be- 
cause he attempted to interpose. Is there a man here, or in 
the country, who condemns Gen. Jackson for the exercise of 
the power of proclaiming martial law in 1815 ? Could that 
city have been saved without placing it under martial law, 
and making Judge Hall submit to it? I know that Gen; 
Jackson submitted to be arrested, tried, and fined $1,000; 
but what did Congress do in that case ? It did just what we 
are called on to do in this case. By the restoration of his 
fine — an act passed by an overwhelming majority in the two 
houses of Congress — the nation said, " We approve what you 
did." Suppose, Mr. President, (and it may have been the 
case,) that the existence of the Government depended upon the 
protection and successful defence of New Orleans ; and sup- 
pose, too, it was in violation of the strict letter of the Consti- 
tution for Gen. Jackson to place New Orleans under martial 
law, but without placing it under martial law the Govern- 
ment would have been overthrown ; is there any reasonable, 
any intelligent man, in or out of Congress, who would not 
indorse and acknowledge the exercise of a power which was 
indispensable to the existence and maintenance of the Gov- 
ernment ? The Constitution was likely to be everthrown, 
the law was about to be violated, and the Government tram- 
pled under foot ; and when it becomes necessary to prevent 
this, even by exercising a power that comes in conflict with the 
Constitution in times of peace, it should and ought to be ex- 
ercised. If Gen. Jackson had lost the city of New Orleans, 
and the Government had been overthrown by a refusal on 
his part to place Judge Hall and the city of New Orleans 
under martial law, he ought to have lost his head. But he 
acted as a soldier ; he acted as a patriot ; he acted as a states- 
man ; as one devoted to the institutions and the preservation 
and the existence of his Government ; and the grateful hom- 
age of a nation was his reward. 

Son. Andrew Johnson, 1861. 



166 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 



AW APPEAL FOR EAST TENNESSEE. 

Sie, I come to the Government, and I do not ask it as a 
suppliant, but I demand it as a constitutional right, that you 
give to the people of East Tennessee protection, arms and 
munitions. If they cannot be got there in any other way, 
then take them there with an invading army, and deliver the 
people from the oppression to which they are now subjected. 
We claim to be the State. The other divisions may have 
seceded and gone off; but if you give us protection we in- 
tend to stand as a State, as a part of this confederacy, hold- 
ing to the stars and stripes, the flag of our country. We 
demand it according to law ; we demand it upon the guar- 
antees of the Constitution. You are bound to guarantee to 
us a republican form of government, and we ask it as a con- 
stitutional right. We do not ask you to interfere as a party, 
as your feelings or prejudices may be one way or another in 
reference to the parties of the country ; but we ask you to 
interfere as a Government, according to the Constitution. 

The amendments to the Constitution, which constitute the 
bill of rights, declare that " a well regulated militia being 
necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the 
people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Our 
people are denied this right secured to them in their own 
Constitution, and the Constitution of the United States. We 
ask the Government to interpose to secure us this constitu- 
tional right. We want the passes in our mountains opened; 
we want deliverance and protection for a down-trodden and 
oppressed people, who are struggling for their independence 
without arms. If we had had ten thousand stand of arms 
and ammunition when the contest commenced, we should 
have asked no further assistance. We have not got them. 
We are a rural people; we have villages and small towns — no 
large cities. Our population is homogenous, industrious, fru- 
gal, brave, independent ; but now harmless, and powerless, 
and oppressed by usurpers. You may be too late in coming 
to our relief; or you may not come at all, though I do not 
doubt that you will come ; they may trample us under foot ; 
they may convert our plains into graveyards, and the caves 
of our mountains into sepulchres ; but they will never take 
us out of this Union, or make us a land of slaves — no, never ! 
We intend to stand as firm as adamant, and as unyielding as 
our own majestic mountains that surround us. Yes, we 
will be as fixed and as immovable as are they upon their 
bases. We will stand as long as we can ; and if we are 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 167 

overpowered, and liberty shall be driven from the land, we 
intend before she departs to take the flag of our country, 
with a stalwart arm, a patriotic heart, and an honest head, 
and place it upon the summit of the loftiest and most majes- 
tic mountain. We intend to plant it there, and leave it, to 
indicate to the inquirer who may come in after times, the 
spot where the goddess of liberty lingered and wept for the 
last time, before she took her flight from a people once pros- 
perous, free and happy. — Hon. Andreio Johnson^ 1861. 



PAST AND PRESENT. 

When the sunlight of the last autumn was supplanted by 
the premonitions of winter, by drifting clouds, and eddying 
leaves, and the flight of birds to a milder clime, our land was 
emphatically blessed. We were at peace with all the pow- 
ers of the earth, and enjoying undisturbed domestic repose. 
A beneficient Providence had smiled upon the labors of the 
husbandman, and our granaries groaned under the burden 
of their golden treasures. Industry found labor and com- 
pensation, and the poor man's latch was never raised except 
in the sacred name of friendship, or by the authority of law. 
No taxation consumed, no destitution appalled, no sickness 
wasted, but health and joy beamed from every face. The 
fruits of toil, from the North and the South, the East and 
the West, were bringing to our feet contributions of the 
earth, and trade, which for a time had fallen back to recover 
breath from previous over-exertion, had resumed her place 
" where merchants most do congregate." The land was re- 
plete with gladness, and vocal with thanksgivings, of its sons 
and daughters, upon the vast prairies of the West, up its 
sunny hill-slopes, and through its smiling valleys, along its 
majestic rivers, and down its meandering streamlets, and its 
institutions of religion, and learning, and charity echoed back 
the sound : 

" But bringing up the rear of this bright host, 
A spirit of a different aspect waved 
His wings, like thunder clouds above some coast, 
Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved. 
His brow was like the deep when tempest-tost ; 
Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved 
Eternal wrath on his immortal face, 
And where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space." 

Yes, in the moment of our country's triumph, in the plen- 
itude of its pride, in the hey-day of its hope, and in the ful- 



168 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

ness of its beauty, the serpent which crawled into Eden, and 
whispered his glozing story of delusion to the unsuspecting 
victim of his guile, unable to rise from the original curse 
which rests upon him, sought to coil his snaky folds around 
it and sting it to the heart. From the arts and the enjoy- 
ments of peace we have been plunged deep into the horrors 
of civil war. Our once happy land resounds with the clangor 
of rebellious arms, and is polluted with the dead bodies of 
its children, some seeking to destroy, some struggling to 
maintain the common beneficent Government of all, as es- 
tablished by our fathers. 

This effort to divide the Union, and subvert the Govern- 
ment, whatever may be the pretence, is, in fact, a daring and 
dangerous crusade against free institutions. It should be 
opposed by the whole power of a patriotic people, and 
crushed beyond the prospect of a resurrection ; and to attain 
that end, the Government should be sustained in every just 
and reasonable effort to maintain the authority and integrity 
of the nation ; to uphold and vindicate the supremacy of the 
Constitution, and the majesty of the laws by all lawful 
means ; not grudgingly sustained, with one hesitating, shuf- 
fling, unwilling step forward to save appearances, and two 
stealthy ones backward to secure a seasonable retreat; nor with 
the shallow craft of a mercenary politician, calculating chan- 
ces, and balancing between expedients, but with the gener- 
ous alacrity and energy which have a meaning, and prove a 
loyal, a patriotic, and a willing heart. It is not a question 
of administration, but of a Government — not of politics, but 
of patriotism — not of policy, but of principles which uphold 
us all — a question too great for party — between the Consti- 
tution and the laws on one hand, and misrule and anarchy on 
the other. — Hon, D. 8. Dickinson, 1861. 



SECESSION ILLUSTRATED, 

Most events of modern times find their parallel in early 
history, and this attempt to extemporize a government upon 
the elements of political disquietude, so that, like sets of dol- 
lar jewelry, every person can have one of his own, does not 
form an exceptional case. When David swayed the sceptre 
of Judea, the comely Absalom, a bright star of the morning, 
whose moral was obscured by his intellectual light, finding 
such amusements as the slaying of his brother and burning 
the barley fields of Joab, too tame for his ambition, conceived 



- SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 169 

the patriotic idea of driving his father from the throne, of 
usurping the regal authority, and relieving the people un- 
asked from the oppressions under which he had discovered 
they were groaning. Like modern demagogues he com- 
menced with disaffection, advised all who came with com- 
plaints that, from royal inattention, no one was deputed to 
hear them, and in greeting those who passed the king's gate 
with a kiss, that he might steal away their hearts, he lamented 
that he was not a judge in the land, so that any one who had 
a cause or suit, might come to him, and he would do him 
justice. Under pretence of going to Hebron, the royal resi- 
dence in the early reign of David, to pay his vows, (for he 
was as conscientious as Herod in the matter of vows,) he 
raised a rebellious army, and sent spies through the land to 
proclaim him king, and reigning in Hebron, when the trum- 
pet should sound upon the air. The conspiracy, says sacred 
history, was strong, and the rebellion was so artfully con- 
trived, so stealthily inaugurated, that it gave high promise 
of success. The king, although in obedience to the stern 
dictates of duty, he sent forth his armies by hundreds and by 
thousands to assert and maintain his prerogative, exhibited 
the heart of a good prince and an affectionate father, in be- 
seeching them to deal gently with the young man, even Ab- 
salom ; and when the conflict was over, the first inquiry with 
anxious solicitude was, "Is the young man safe?" And yet 
this ambitious rebel, in raising a numerous and powerful 
army, and endeavoring to wrest the government from the 
rightful monarch, would doubtless have claimed, according 
to modern acceptation, that he was acting from high convic- 
tions of duty, from a powerful necessity, and fighting purely 
in self-defence. And when the great battle was set in array 
in the wood of Ephraim, where twenty thousand were 
slaughtered, and the wood devoured that day more than the 
sword devoured, there was evidently nothing that he so much 
desired, when he saw exposure and overthrow inevitable, as 
to be let alone. But that short struggle subdued the aspira- 
tions, and closed forever the ignoble career of this ambitious 
leader in Israel — -a warning to those who would become 
judges before their time, or be made kings upon the sound 
of a trumpet, blown by their own directions. Let all such 
remember the wood of Ephraim, the wide-spreading branches 
of the oak, the painful suspense which came over the author 
of the rebellion, the darts of Joab, and the dark pit into 
which this prince of the royal household was cast for his 
folly, his madness, and treachery. 

And when those charged with the administration of our 



170 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

Government send forth its armies by hundreds and by thou- 
sands to maintain and vindicate the Constitution and Union 
of our fathers, may they imitate the example of the wise 
king of Judea, and beseech the captains of the hosts to deal 
gently with the young Absaloms of Secession, and by all 
means inquire for their safety, when their armies have been 
completely routed and the rebellion put down forever. 

Hon. D. JS. Dickinson, 1861. 



A LESSON FROM MEXICO. 

Secession, either peaceable or violent, if crowned with 
complete success, can furnish no remedy for sectional griev- 
ances, real or imaginary. It would be as destructive of 
southern as of northern interests, for both are alike con- 
cerned in the maintenance and prosperity of the Union. It 
would increase every evil, aggravate every cause of dis- 
turbance, and render every acute complaint hopelessly chronic. 
Look at miserable, misguided, misgoverned Mexico, and re- 
ceive a lesson of instruction. She has been seceding, and 
dividing, and pronouncing, and fighting for her rights, and 
in the self-defence of aggressive leaders, from the day of her 
nominal independence, and she has reaped an abundant har- 
vest of degradation and shame. ~No president of the Repub- 
lic has ever served the full term for which he was elected, 
and generally, had his successor had more fitness than him- 
self, it would have occasioned no detriment. When the 
population of the United States was three millions that of 
Mexico was five ; and when that of the United States is 
thirty, the population of Mexico is only eight ; and while the 
United States has gained the highest rank among the nations 
of the earth, by common consent, Mexico has descended to 
the lowest. Her people have been the dupes, and slaves, and 
footballs of aspiring leaders, mad with a reckless and mean 
ambition, inflated with self-importance and conceit, and des- 
titute of patriotism or statesmanship. But as a clown with 
a pickaxe can demolish the choicest productions of art, so 
can the demagogues overthrow the loftiest institutions of 
wisdom. 

Thus has poor, despised, dwarfed, and down-trodden Mex- 
ico been crushed forever, under the iron heel of her own in- 
sane despoilers ; a memorable but melancholy illustration of 
a people without a fixed and stable government : the sport 
of the profligate and designing, the victim of fraud and 
violence. — Hon. D. S. Dickinson, 1861. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 171 



THE CIVIL WAE. 



This civil intestine war is one of the most fearful and fero- 
cious that ever desolated earth ; and its authors will be 
cursed, when the atrocities of Bajazet and Tamerlane, and 
the khans of Tartary and India, and other despoilers of the 
earth, shall be forgotten. It is a war between and among 
brethren. Those whose eyes should have beamed in friend- 
ship now gleam in war ; those who close in the death-strug- 
gle upon the battle-field, were children of the same house- 
hold and nurtured at the same gathering place of affection ; 
baptized at the same font, and confirmed at the same 
chancel : 

" They grew in beauty side by side, 
They filled one bouse with glee ; 

***** 
Wbose voices mingled as they prayed 
Round tbe same parent knee." 

But, while we express deep humiliation for the depravity 
of our kind, and are shocked and sickened at a spectacle so 
revolting, we should not abandon the dear old mansion to 
the flames, even though kindled by brethren, who should 
have watched over it with us, and guarded it from harm. 
And, while we should not raise our hand to shed a brother's 
blood, we may turn aside his insane blow, aimed at the heart 
of the venerated mother of all. And, if a great power of 
Europe is disposed to sympathize with rebellion, and believes 
this Government and this people can be driven by the menace 
of foreign and ^domestic forces combined, to avoid the curses 
of war, let her try the experiment. But when they come, 
to save time and travel, let them bring with them a duly ex- 
ecuted quit-claim to the Union for such portions of the North 
American continent as they have not surrendered to it in 
former conflicts, for they will have occasion for just such an 
instrument, whenever their impertinent interference is mani- 
fested practically in our domestic affairs. 

Hon. D, S. Dickinson, 1861. 



A WORD TO THE SECEDERS 



A word to those who would labor to destroy the Union. 
You have widely mistaken both the temper and the purpose 
of the great body of people of the free States in the present 



172 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

crisis. In this unnatural struggle, which your leaders have 
forced upon them, they seek only to uphold and maintain, 
and preserve from destruction, a Government which is a 
common inheritance, and in the preservation of which you 
are equally interested. They seek not to despoil your States, 
nor to disturb your internal relations, but to preserve the 
Union which shelters and protects all, and vindicate the Con- 
stitution, which is your only defence from aggression. They 
war not upon your peculiar system of domestic servitude, 
but they admonish you in a spirit of kindness that, during 
this brief struggle, its friends and advocates have been its 
worst enemies, and have furnished arguments against it, 
which will weaken its foundations, when the denunciation of 
its most persistent anti-slavery foes are forgotten forever. 
You arraign the people of the free States for rallying around 
the Government of the Union, of which a few months since 
you were members, and sustained it yourselves, and which, 
at the time of your alleged secession, had experienced no 
change beyond one of political administration. You repudi- 
ate the Constitution with no sufficient cause of revolution, 
for all the alleged causes of grievance as stated were insuffi- 
cient to justify it, and proclaimed a dissolution of the Union, 
defied and dishonored its flag, and menaced the Government 
by denouncing actual war. You seized by violence its for- 
tresses, armories, ships, mints, custom-houses, navy-yards, 
and other property, to which you had not even a pretence of 
right, and threatened to take possession of the national capi- 
tal. You bombarded Fort Sumter, a fortress of the United 
States, garrisoned as a peace establishment only, and in a 
state of starvation, from batteries which the Government of 
the United States, in its extreme desire for peace, permitted 
you to erect for that purpose, under the ,guns of the same 
fortification, a proceeding unheard of before, and never to be 
repeated hereafter — bombarded it, too, because the flag of 
the Union which your fathers and yourselves had fought 
under with us the battles of the Constitution — a flag which 
a few days previously you had hailed with pride — because 
the stars and stripes, the joy of every American heart, full of 
glowing histories and lofty recollections — floating over it ac- 
cording to the custom of every nation and people under hea- 
ven, were hateful in your sight ! The Athenians were tired 
of hearing their great leader called the Just, and consigned 
him to banishment. You were annoyed at the sight of the 
noblest national emblem which floats under the sun, when 
unfurled where, by your consent, and for a consideration, too, 
the Government of the United States held exclusive juris- 






SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 173 

diction, and where it properly belonged ; and for this you 
commenced a war promising to be more ferocious and exter- 
minating throughout the Republic than was the atrocious 
decree of Herod in a single village. 

Hon. I). S. J)ic7ci?ison i 1861. 



THE WAT OP PEACE. 

You propose to defend your hearths, your fire-sides, your 
porches, your altars, your wives, and your children, your 
household gods, and these resolves sound well indeed, even 
in the abstract ; but practically, the defence will be in time 
when they are assailed, or at least threatened. And you may 
rest with the assurance that when either of these sacred and 
cherished interests shall be desecrated or placed in danger or 
in jeopardy from any Vandal spirit upon the globe, you shall 
not defend them alone ; for an army from the free States 
mightier thau that which rose up to crush your rebellion, 
" ay, a great multitude, which no man. can number," will de- 
fend them for you. But the issue must not be changed nor 
frittered away. Sumpter was not your hearth, Pickens your 
fire-side, Harper's Ferry your porch, the navy-yards your al- 
tars, the custom-houses, and post-offices, and revenue cutters 
your wives and children, nor the mints your household gods. 
The Government has no right to desecrate your homes, nor 
have you the right to seize upon and appropriate to yourselves 
under any name, however specious, what is not your own, but 
the property of the whole people of the United States ; not of 
those in array against it as enemies, defying its laws, but 
those who acknowledge and defer to its authority. 

You desire peace! Then lay down your arms and you 
will have it. It was peace when you took them up, it will 
be peace when you lay them down. It wall be peace when 
you abandon war and return to your accustomed pursuits. 
Honorable, enduring, pacific relations will be found in com- 
plete obedience to the provisions of the Constitution, and not 
in its violation or destruction. The Government is sustained 
by the people, not for the purpose of coercing States in their 
domestic policy, not for the purpose of crushing members of 
the confederacy because they fail to conform to a Federal 
standard, not for the purpose of despoiling their people, nor 
of interfering with the system of Southern servitude; but for 
the sole and only purpose of putting down an unholy, armed 



174 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

rebellion, which has defied the authority of the Government, 
and seeks its destruction, and in this their determination is 
taken with a resolution, compared with which the edicts of 
the Medes and Persians were yielding- and temporary. When 
the Government of our fathers shall be again recognized, 
when the Constitution and the laws to which every citizen 
owes allegiance shall be observed and obeyed ; then will the 
armies of the Constitution and the Union disband, by a com- 
mon impulse, in obedience to a unanimous popular will. And 
should the present or any succeeding administration attempt 
to employ the authorities of the Government and people to 
coerce States, or mould their internal affairs in derogation of 
the Constitution, the same array of armed forces would again 
take the field, but it would be to arrest Federal assumption 
and usurpation, and protect the domestic rights of States. 

Hon. D. S. Dickinson, 1861. 



AN APPEAL FO'R THE UNION, 

Shall we then surrender to turbulence, and faction, and 
rebellion, and give up the Union with all its elements of good, 
all its holy memories, all its hallowed associations, all its blood- 
bought history? Give up the Union ! " this fair and fertile 
plain to batten on that moor." Give up the Union, with its 
glorious flag, its stars and stripes, full of proud and pleasing 
and honorable recollections, for the spurious invention with 
no antecedents, but the history of a violated Constitution, 
and of lawless ambition! No! Ask the Christian to ex- 
change the cross, with the cherished memories of a Saviour's 
love, for the crescent of the impostor, or to address his 
prayers to the Juggernaut a Josh, instead of the living and 
true God ! But sustain the emblem your fathers loved and 
cherished. 

Give up the Union ? Its name shall be heard with vene- 
ration amid the roar of Pacific's waves, away upon the rivers 
of the North and East, where liberty is divided from mon- 
archy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon the Rio Grande. 
It shall rustle in the harvest, and wave in the standing corn, 
on the extended prairies of the West, and be heard in the 
bleating folds and lowing herds upon a thousand hills. It 
shall be with those who delve in mines, and shall hum in the 
manufactories of New England, and in the cotton gins of the 
South. It shall be proclaimed by the stars and stripes in 
every sea of earth, as the American Union, one and indivisible ; 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 1^5 

upon the great thoroughfares, wherever steam drives and en- 
gines throb and shriek, its greatness and perpetuity shall be 
hailed with gladness. It shall be lisped in the earliest words, 
and ring in the merry voices of childhood, and swell to heav- 
en upon the song of maidens. It shall live in the stern resolve 
of manhood, and rise to the mercy-seat upon woman's gentle 
prayer. Holy men shall invoke its perpetuity at the altars of 
religion, and it shall be whispered in the last accents of ex- 
piring age. Thus shall survive and be perpetuated the Amer- 
ican Union, and when it shall be proclaimed that time shall 
be no more, and the curtain shall fall, and the good shall be 
gathered to a more perfect union, still may the destiny of our 
dear land recognize the conception of the poet of her primi- 
tive days : 

" Perfumes as of Eden flowed sweetly along, 
And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung, 
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, 
The queen of the world and the child of the skies." 

Hon. D. S. Dickinson. 



THE MEANS OF RESISTANCE. 

Me. Lincoln has increased his call from seventy-five thou- 
sand to four hundred thousand men. He has increased his 
demand for money from the five millions first asked for, and 
asks his Congress, now in session, for four hundred millions 
of dollars. Whether he will raise his men or his money, I 
know not. All I have to say about it is, that if he raises his 
four hundred thousand men, we must raise enough to meet 
him, and if he raises his four hundred millions of money, we 
must raise enough to meet it. 

We have, upon a resonable estimate, at least seven hun- 
dred thousand fighting men. Whether all these will be re- 
quired to drive back his armed myrmidons, I know not ; but, 
if they are, every man must go to the battle field. He may 
think, and doubtless does, that four hundred thousand men 
.will intimidate, subjugate, and overrun us. He should recol- 
lect, however, as we should, and reverently, too, that the 
u race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," but 
it is God that gives the victory. 

Four hundred thousand may be a formidable army against 
us, but it is not as formidable as the six hundred thousand 
led by Darius against the Grecian States ; and we there have 
the example of much fewer numbers than we are, fighting a 



176 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

battle for right, for justice, for independence, and for liberty. 
We have an example worthy of our imitation. Six hundred 
thousand Persians invaded Greece. These small States could 
bring against them but eleven thousand air told. The eleven 
thousand met the hosts of Persia, not the six hundred thou- 
saud, but all that could be brought against them on the com- 
mon plain. The eleven thousand with valorous hearts, fight- 
ing for home, fighting for country, fighting for every thing 
dear to freemen, put to flight the hosts of Persia, leaving 
sixty thousand slain upon the field. Men of the South, there- 
fore, let this war assume its gigantic proportions, its most 
threatening prospects, (nerving our hearts with the spirit of 
our revolutionary fathers, when they were but three millions, 
and coped with Great Britain, the most powerful nation in 
the world) — animated by these sentiments, fighting for every 
thing dear to us, fear not the result, recollecting that " thrice 
armed is he who hath his quarrel just;" and as our fathers, 
in the bloody conflict of the Revolutionary War, appealed to 
the God of battles for success in their cause, so may we, since 
we have the consciousness, in any event, that this war is not 
of our seeking. — Hon. A. H. Stephens, 1861. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF SECESSION IDENTICAL WITH THOSE OP 
SEVENTY-SIX. 

This war is not of our seeking. We simply wish to 
govern ourselves as we please. We simply stand where our 
revolutionary fathers stood in '76. We stand upon the great 
fundamental principle announced on the 4th of July, 1776, 
and incorporated in the Declaration of Independence — that 
great principle that announces that governments derive their 
just power from the consent of the governed. In the an- 
nouncement of this principle, the delegation from Massachu- 
setts, and from Rhode Island, and from Connecticut, and 
from all the Northern States, united with the delegates from 
the Old Dominion, and from the Palmetto State, and from 
Georgia, the youngest and last of the colonies, then not 
numbering more than fifty thousand of population — they 
united in this declaration of the delegates from all the States 
or colonies, and for the maintenance of it they pledged their 
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor — Massachusetts 
side by side with Georgia, John Hancock at their head, and 
strange to say, to-day, the people of Massachusetts and the 
Northern States are reversing the position of our fathers, 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 177 

and are demanding to rule, to govern, to coerce, to subjugate 
us against our consent. 

But for one I declare to you to-day, you may think of it as 
you please, the people of the South may decide it as they 
please, but for one, I would never surrender this principle, 
though every valley from here to the Potomac should run 
with Southern blood, and every hill top be bleached with 
Southern bones. Home, firesides, life, friends and luxuries 
are dear, but there is something dearer to a true man than 
life, than home, and all. It is honor and independence. Let 
the enemy, therefore, make his calculation as wide and broad 
as he pleases. I say every true Southern heart is impressed 
with the magnitude of the responsibility that now rests upon 
us ; and let every man be nerved to meet that responsibility 
at any and every cost. Our fathers pledged life, honor and 
fortune for this principle, and I know we are not the degene- 
rate sons, nor are we the degenerate daughters of the noble 
matrons of that day, that would sacrifice, lose or surrender 
these principles at a less cost. 

Son. A. H. /Stephens, 1861. 



THE TKUE CAUSE OF THE EEBELLION , 

Could one, an entire stranger to our history, now look 
down upon the Southland see there a hundred or a hundred 
and fifty thousand men marching in hostile array, threatening 
the capture of the capital, and the dismemberment of the 
territory of the Republic; and could he look again and see 
that this army is marshalled and directed by officers recently 
occupying distinguished places in the civil and military ser- 
vice of the country ; and further that the States from which 
this army has been drawn appear to be one vast, seething 
cauldron of ferocious passion, he would very naturally con- 
clude that the Government of the United States had com- 
mitted some great crime against its people, and that this up- 
rising was in resistance to wrong and outrages which had 
been borne until endurance was no longer possible. And 
yet no conclusion could be further from the truth than this. 
The Government of the United States has been faithful to 
all its constitutional obligations. For eighty years it has 
maintained the national honor at home and abroad, and by 
its prowess, its wisdom, and its justice, has given to the title 
of an American citizen an elevation among the nations of the 
earth which the citizens of no republic have enjoyed 'since 



178 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Rome was mistress of the world. Under its administration 
the national domain has stretched away to the Pacific, and 
that constellation which announced our birth as a people, has 
expanded from thirteen to thirty-four stars, all, until recently, 
moving undisturbed and undimmed in their orbs of light and 
grandeur. The rights of no States have been invaded ; no 
man's property has been despoiled, no man's liberty abridged, 
no man's life oppressively jeoparded by the action of this 
Government. Under its benign influences the rills of public 
and private prosperity have swelled into rivulets, and from 
rivulets into rivers ever brimming in their fulness, and every- 
where, and at all periods of its history, its ministrations have 
fallen as gently on the people of the United States, as do the 
dews of a summer's night on the flowers and grass of the 
gardens and fields. 

Whence, then, this revolutionary outbreak ? Whence the 
secret spring of this gigantic conspiracy, which, like some 
huge boa, had completely coiled itself round the limbs and 
body of the. Republic, before a single hand was lifted to re- 
sist it ? Strange, and indeed startling, as the announcement 
must appear when it falls on the ears of the next generation, 
the national tragedy, in whose shadow we stand to-night, has 
come upon us because, in November last, John C. Breckin- 
ridge was not elected President of the United States, and 
Abraham Lincoln was. This is the whole story. And I 
would pray now to know, on what John C. Breckinridge fed 
that he has grown so great, that a republic founded by 
Washington and cemented by the best blood that has ever 
coursed in human veins, is to be overthrown, because for- 
sooth, he cannot be its President? Had he been chosen, we 
well know that we should not have heard of this rebellion, 
for the lever with which it is being moved would have been 
wanting to the hands of the conspirators. Even after his de- 
feat, could it have been guaranteed, beyond all peradventure, 
that Jeff Davis or some other kindred spirit, would be the 
successor of Mr. Lincoln, I presume we hazard nothing in 
assuming that this atrocious movement against the Govern- 
ment would not have been set on foot. So much for the 
principle involved in it. This great crime, then, with which 
we are grappling, sprang from that "sin by which the 
angels fell" — an unmastered and profligate ambition — an 
ambition that " would rather reign in hell than serve in 
heaven" — that would rather rule supremely over a shattered 
fragment of the Republic than run the chances of sharing 
with others the honors of the whole. 

Son. Joseph Solt, 1861. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 179 



A MIRROR FOR TRAITORS. 

Let no man imagine that, because this rebellion has been 
made by men renowned in our civil and military history, it 
is the less guilty or the less courageously to be resisted. It 
is precisely this class of men who have subverted the best 
governments that have ever existed. The purest spirits that 
have lived in the tide of times, the noblest institutions that 
have arisen to bless our race, have found among those in 
whom they had most confided, and whom they had most 
honored, men wicked enough, either secretly to betray them 
unto death, or openly to seek their overthrow by lawless 
violence. The Republic of England had its Monk ; the Re- 
public of France had its Bonaparte ; the Republic of Rome 
had its Caesar and its Cataline, and the Saviour of the world 
had his Judas Iscariot. It cannot be necessary that I should 
declare to you, for you know them well, who they are whose 
parricidal swords are now unsheathed against the Republic 
of the United States. Their names are inscribed upon a roll 
of infamy that can never perish. The most distinguished of 
them were educated by the charity of the Government on 
which they are now making war. For long years they were 
fed from its table, and clothed from its wardrobe, and had 
their brows garlanded by its honors. They are the ungrate- 
ful sons of a fond mother, who dandled them upon her knee, 
who lavished upon them the gushing love of her noble and 
devoted nature, and who nurtured them from the very bosom 
of her life ; and now, in the frenzied excesses of a licentious 
and baffled ambition, they are stabbing at that bosom with 
the ferocity with which the tiger springs upon his prey. The 
President of the United States is heroically and patriotically 
struggling to baffle the machinations of these most wicked 
men. I have unbounded gratification in knowing that he has 
the courage to look traitors in the face, and that, in discharg- 
ing the duties of his great office, he takes no counsel of his 
fears. He is entitled to the zealous support of the whole 
country, and may I not add without offence, that he will re- 
ceive the support of all who justly appreciate the boundless 
blessings of our free institutions. — lion. Joseph Holt, 1861. 



180 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE PEUITS OF SECESSION. 

If this rebellion succeeds, it will involve necessarily the 
destruction of our nationality, the division of our territory, 
the permanent disruption of the Republic. It must rapidly 
dry up the sources of our material prosperity, and year by 
year we shall grow more and more impoverished, more and 
more revolutionary, enfeebled and debased. Each returning 
election will bring with it grounds for new civil commotions, 
and traitors prepared to strike at the country that has reject- 
ed their claims to power, will spring up on every side. Dis- 
union once begun, will go on and on indefinitely, and under 
the influence of the fatal doctrine of secession, not only will 
States secede from States, but counties will secede from States 
also, and towns and cities from counties, until universal an- 
archy will be consummated in each individual who can make 
good his position by force of arms, claiming" the right to defy 
the power of the Government. Thus we should have brought 
back to us the days of the robber barons with their moated 
castles and marauding retainers. This doctrine when ana- 
lyzed is simply a declaration that no physical force shall ever 
be employed in executing the laws or upholding the Gov- 
ernment—and a government into whose practical administra- 
tion such a principle has been introduced, could no more con- 
tinue to exist than a man could live with an angered cobra 
in his bosom. If you would know what are the legitimate 
fruits of secession, look at Virginia and Tennessee, which 
have so lately given themselves up to the embraces of this 
monster. There the schools are deserted; the courts of jus- 
tice closed ; public and private credit destroyed ; commerce 
annihilated ; debts repudiated ; confiscations and spoliations 
everywhere prevailing ; every cheek blanched with fear, and 
every heart frozen with despair ; and all over that desolated 
land the hand of infuriated passion and crime is waving, with 
a vulture's scream for blood, the sword of civil war. And 
this is the pandemonium which some would have transferred 
to Kentucky! — Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861. 



SOtfTHEKN INDEPENDENCE. 

The arbitrament of the sword has been defiantly thrust 
into the face of the Government and country, and there is no 
honorable escape from it. All guarantees and all attempts at 






SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 181 

adjustment by amendments to the Constitution, are now 
scornfully rejected, and the leaders of the rebellion openly 
proclaim that they are fighting for their independence. 
Fighting for their independence ! Independence of what ? 
Independence of those laws which they themselves have 
aided in enacting ; independence of that Constitution which 
their fathers framed and to which they are parties, and sub- 
ject by inheritance ; independence of that beneficent Govern- 
ment on whose treasury and honors they have grown strong 
and illustrious. When a man commits a robbery on the 
highway, or a murder in the dark, he thereby declares his 
independence of the laws under which he lives, and of the 
society of which he is a member. Should he, when arraigned, 
avow and justify the offence, he thereby becomes the advo- 
cate of the independence he has thus declared; and^ if 
he resists, by force of arms, the officer, when dragging him 
to the prison, the penitentiary, or the gallows, he is thereby 
fighting for the independence he has thus declared and advo- 
cated ; and such is the condition of the conspirators of the 
South at this moment. It is no longer a question of Southern 
rights — which have never been violated — nor of the security 
of Southern institutions, which we know perfectly well have 
never been interfered with by the general Government, but it 
is purely with us a question of national existence. In meeting 
this terrible issue which rebellion has made up with the loyal 
men of the country, we stand upon ground infinitely above 
all party lines and party platforms — ground as sublime as 
that on which our fathers stood when they fought the battles 
of the Revolution. 

I wish solemnly to declare before you and the world, that 
I am for this Union without conditions, one and indivisible, 
now- and forever. I am for its preservation at any and every 
cost of blood and treasure against all its assailants. I know 
no neutrality between my country and its foes, whether they 
be foreign or domestic ; no neutrality between that glorious 
flag which now floats over us and the ingrates and traitors who 
would trample it in the dust. My prayer is for victory, com- 
plete, enduring, and overwhelming, to the armies of the Re 
public over all its enemies. But, if in this anticipation we 
are doomed to disappointment ; if the people of the United 
States have already become so degenerate — may I not say so 
craven ? — in the presence of their foes, as to surrender up 
this Republic to be dismembered and" subverted by the trai- 
tors who have reared the standard of revolt against it, then, 
I trust, the volume of American history will be closed and 
sealed up forever, and that those who shall survive this na- 



182 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

tional humiliation will take unto themselves some other name 
— some name having no relation to the past, no relation to 
our great ancestors, no relation to those monuments and bat- 
tle-fields which commemorate alike their heroism, their loy- 
alty, and their glory. — Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861. 



SECESSION AND SUBMISSION COMPARED, 

Ve are told by the disunionists that, in supporting a Re- 
publican administration in its endeavors to uphold the Con- 
stitution and the laws, we are " submissionists," and when 
they have pronounced this word, they suppose they have 
imputed to us the sum of all human abasement. Well, let it 
be confessed, we are " submissionists," and weak and spirit- 
less as it may be deemed by some, we glory in the position 
we occupy. For example, the law says, " Thou shalt not 
steal ;" we would submit to this law, and would not for the 
world's worth rob our neighbor of his forts, his arsenals, his 
arms, his munitions of war, his hospital stores, or any- 
thing that is his. Indeed, so impressed are we with the ob- 
ligations of this law, that we would no more think of plun- 
dering from our neighbor half a million of dollars because 
found in his unprotected mints, than we would think of filch- 
ing a purse from his pocket in a crowded thoroughfare. 
Write us down, therefore, "submissionists." Again, the 
law says, " Thou shalt not swear falsely ;" we submit to this 
law, and while in the civil or military service of the country, 
with an oath to support the Constitution of the United 
States resting upon our consciences, we would not for any 
earthly consideration engage in the formation or execution 
of a conspiracy to subvert that very Constitution, and with 
it the Government to which it has given birth. Write us 
down, therefore, again, " submissionists." Yet again, when 
a President has been elected in strict accordance with the 
form and spirit of the Constitution, and has been regularly 
installed into office, and is honestly striving to discharge his 
duty by snatching the Republic from the jaws of a gigantic 
treason which threatens to crush it, we care not what his 
name may or may not be, or what the designation of his 
political party, or wjiat the platform on which he stood 
during the presidential canvass ; we believe we fulfil in the 
sight of earth and heaven our highest obligations to our 
country, in giving to him an earnest and loyal support in the 
struggle in which he is engaged. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 183 

Nor are we at all disturbed by the flippant taunt that, in 
thus submitting to the authority of our Government, we are 
necessarily cowards. We know whence this taunt comes, 
and we estimate it at its true value. We hold that there is 
a higher courage in the performance of duty than in the 
commission of crime. The tiger of the jungle, and the can- 
nibal of the South Sea Islands have that courage in which 
the revolutionists of the day make their especial boast ; the 
angels of God, and the spirits of just men made perfect have 
had, and have that courage which submits to the law. Lu- 
cifer was a non-submissionist, and the first secessionist of 
whom history has given any account, and the chains which 
he wears fitly express the fate due to all who openly defy the 
laws of their Creator and of their country. He rebelled 
because the Almighty would not yield to him the throne of 
heaven. The principle of the Southern rebellion is the same. 
Indeed, in this submission to the laws is found the chief dis- 
tinction between good men and devils. A good man obeys 
the laws of truth, of honesty, of morality, and all those laws 
which have been enacted by competent authority for the 
government and protection of the country in which he* lives ; 
a devil obeys only his own ferocious and profligate passions. 
The principle on which this rebellion proceeds, that laws 
have in themselves no sanctions, no binding force upon the 
conscience, and that every man, under the promptings of in- 
terest, or passion, or caprice, may at will, and honorably too, 
strike at the Government that shelters him, is one of utter 
demoralization, and should be trodden out as you would 
tread out a spark that has fallen on the roof of your dwell- 
ing. Its unchecked prevalence would resolve society into 
chaos," and leave you without the slightest guarantee for life, 
liberty or property. It is true, that in their majesty, the 
people of the United States should make known to the world 
that this Government in its dignity and power, is something 
more than a moot court, and that the citizen who makes war 
upon it is a traitor, not only in theory but in fact, and should 
have meted out to him a traitor's doom. The country wants 
no bloody sacrifice, but it must and will have peace, cost 
what it may.— Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861. 



NEUTRALITY OP KENTUCKY, 

I desire to say a few words on the relations of Kentucky 
to the pending rebellion ; and as we are all Kentuckians here 
together to-night,' and as this is purely a family matter, which 



184 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

concerns the honor of us all, I hope we may be permitted tc 
speak to each other upon it with entire freedom. Your leg- 
islature have determined that daring the present unhappy 
war the attitude of the State shall be that of strict neutral- 
ity, and it is upon this determination that I wish respectfully, 
but frankly, to comment. Strictly and legally speaking, 
Kentucky must go out of the Union before she can be neu- 
tral. Within it she is necessarily either faithful to the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, or she is disloyal to it. If this 
crutch of neutrality, upon which the well-meaning but ill- 
judging politicians are halting, can find any middle ground 
on which to rest, it has escaped my researches, though I have 
diligently sought it. Neutrality in the sense of those who 
now use the term, however patriotically designed, is, in 
effect, but a snake in the grass of rebellion, and those who 
handle it will sooner or later feel its fangs. Said one who 
spake as never man spake, " He who is not with us is against 
us;" and of none of the conflicts which have arisen between 
men, or between nations, could this be more truthfully said 
than of that in which we are now involved. Neutrality 
necessarily implies indifference. Is Kentucky indifferent to 
the issues of this contest ? Has she, indeed, nothing at 
stake ? Has she no compact with her sister States to keep, 
no plighted faith to uphold, no renown to sustain, no glory 
to win ? Has she no horror of that crime of crimes now 
being committed against us by that stupendous rebellion 
which has arisen like a tempest-cloud in the South ? We 
rejoice to know that she is still a member of this Union, and 
as such she has the same interest in resisting this rebellion 
that each limb of the body has in resisting a poignard whose 
point is aimed at the heart. It is her house that is on fire ; 
has she no interest in extinguishing the conflagation ? Will 
she stand aloof and announce herself neutral between the 
raging flames and the brave men who are perilling their lives 
to subdue them ? Hundreds of thousands of citizens of 
other States — -men of culture and character, of thought and 
of toil — men who have a deep stake in life, and an intense 
appreciation of its duties and responsibilities, who know the 
worth of this blessed Government of ours, and do not prize 
even their own blood above it — I say, hundreds of thousands 
of such men have left their homes, their workshops, their 
offices, their counting-houses, and their fields, and are now 
rallying about our flag, freely offering their all to sustain it. 
And since the days when crusading Europe threw its hosts 
upon the embattled plains of Asia, no deeper, no more earn- 
est, or grander spirit has stirred the souls of men than that 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 185 

which now sways those mighty masses whose gleaming ban- 
ners are destined ere long to make bright again the earth 
and sky of the distracted South. Can Kentucky look upon 
this sublime spectacle of patriotism unmoved, and then say 
to herself: " I will spend neither blood nor treasure, but I 
will shrink away while the battle rages, and after it has been 
fought and won, I will return to the camp, well assured that 
if I cannot claim the laurels, I will at least enjoy the bless- 
ings of the victory ?" Is this all that remains of her chiv- 
alry — of the chivalry of the land of the Shelbys, the John- 
sons, the Aliens, the Clays, the Adairs, and the Davieses ? Is 
there a Kentuckian within the sound of my voice to-night, 
who can hear the anguished cry of his country as she wres- 
tles and writhes in the folds of this gigantic treason, and 
then lay himself down upon his pillow with this thought of 
neutrality, without feeling that he has something in his bosom 
which stings him worse than would an adder ? Have we, 
within the brief period of eighty years, descended so far 
from the mountain heights on which our fathers stood, that 
already, in our degeneracy, we proclaim our blood too pre- 
cious, our treasure too valuable, to be devoted to the preser- 
vation of such a Government as this. 

Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861. 



AN APPEAL TO KENTUCKIANS. 

There is not, and there cannot be, any neutral ground for 
a loyal people between their own government and those who, 
at the head of armies, are menacing its destruction. Your 
inaction is not neutrality, though you may delude yourself 
with the belief that it is so. With this rebellion confronting 
you, when you refuse to cooperate actively with your Gov- 
ernment in subduing it, you thereby condemn the Govern- 
ment, and assume toward it an attitude of antagonism. You 
may rest well assured that this estimate of your neutrality is 
entertained by the true men of the country in all the States 
which are now sustaining the Government. Within the last 
few weeks how many of those gallant volunteers who have 
left home and kindred, and all that is dear to them, and are 
now under a Southern sun, exposing themselves to death 
from disease and to death from battle, and are accounting their 
lives as nothing in the effort they are making for the deliver- 
ance of your Government and theirs ; how many of them have 
said to me in sadness and in longing, "Will not Kentucky help 



186 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

us?" How my soul would have leaped could I have answered 
promptly, confidently, exultingly, "Yes, she will !" But when 
I thought of this neutrality my heart sank within me, and I did 
not and I could not look those brave men. in the face. And yet 
I could not answer, " No." I could not crush myself to the 
earth under the self-abasement of such a reply. I therefore 
said — and may my country sustain me — " I hope, I trust, I 
pray, nay, I believe, Kentucky will yet do her duty." 

If this Government is to be destroyed, ask yourselves are you 
willing it shall be recorded in history that Kentucky stood by 
in the greatness of her strength and lifted not aThand to stay 
the catastrophe ? If it is to be saved, as I verily believe it is, 
are you willing it shall be written that, in the immeasurable 
glory which must attend the achievement, Kentucky had no 
part? If Kentucky wishes the waters of her beautiful Ohio 
to be dyed in blood — if she wishes her harvest fields, now 
waving in their abundance, to be trampled beneath the feet of 
hostile soldiery, as a flower-garden is trampled beneath the 
threshings of the tempest — if she wishes the homes where her 
loved ones are now gathered in peace, invaded by the proscrip- 
tive fury of a military despotism, sparing neither life nor prop- 
erty — if she wishes the streets of her towns and cities grown 
with grass, and the steamboats of her rivers to lie rotting at 
her wharves, then let her join the Southern Confederacy ; but 
if she would have the bright waters of that river flow on in 
their gladness — if she would have her harvests peacefully 
gathered to her garners — if she would have the lullabies of her 
cradles and the songs of her homes uninvaded by the cries and 
terrors of battle — if she would have the streets of her towns 
and cities again filled with the hum and throngs of busy trade, 
and her rivers and her shores once more vocal with the 
steamer's whistle, — that anthem of a free and prosperous 
commerce, — then let her stand fast by the stars and stripes, 
and do her duty, and her whole duty as a member of this 
Union. Let her brave people say to the President of the 
United States : You are our Chief Magistrate ; the Govern- 
ment you have in charge, and are striving to save from dis- 
honor and dismemberment, is our Government; your cause 
is indeed our cause ; your battles are our battles ; make room 
for us, therefore, in the ranks of your armies, that your tri- 
umph may be our triumph also. 

Even as with the Father of us all I would plead for salva- 
tion, so, my countrymen, as upon my very knees, wOuld I 
plead with you for the life, aye for the life, of our great and 
beneficent institutions. But if the traitor's knife, now at the 
throat of the Republic, is to do its work, and this Govern- 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 187 

ment is fated to add yet another to that long line of sepul- 
chres which whiten the highway of the past, then my heart- 
felt prayer to God is, that it may be written in history, that 
the blood of its life was not found upon the skirts of Ken- 
tucky. — Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861. 



CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEE OF A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 
TO EVERY STATE, 

Mr. President, in the heat and excitement of this debate, 
there are one or two ideas that ought not to be lost sight of. 
The Senator from Kentucky seems to forget, while he speaks 
of the delegated powers of this Government under the Con- 
stitution, that one of the powers which is delegated is that 
we shall guarantee to every State of this Union, a republican 
form of government ; that when South Carolina seeks to set 
up a military despotism, the constitutional power with which 
we are v clothed and the duty which is enjoined upon us is to 
guarantee to South Carolina a republican form of govern- 
ment. There is another idea that seems to be lost sight of 
in the talk about subjugation, and I hope that my friends on 
this side of the chamber will not also lose sight of it in the 
excitement of the debate. I undertake to say that it is not 
the purpose of this war, or of this administration, to subju- 
gate any State of the Union, or the people of any State of the 
Union. What is the policy ? It is, as I said the other day, 
to enable the loyal people of the several States of this Union 
to reconstruct themselves upon the Constitution of the 
United States. Virginia has led the way ; Virginia, in her 
sovereign capacity, by the assembled loyal people of that 
State in convention, has organized herself upon the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and they have taken into their own 
hands the government of tha£ State. Virginia has her 
judges, her marshals, her public officers; and to the courts 
of Virginia, and to the marshals and executive officers of 
Virginia we can entrust the enforcement of the laws the 
moment that the state of civil war shall have ceased in the 
eastern or any other portion of the State. It is not, there- 
fore, the purpose of this Government to subjugate the people 
of Virginia and of Tennessee and of North Carolina and of 
Texas, ay, and of the Gulf States, too, when they are prepared 
for it; we will rally to the support of the loyal people of 
these States and enable them to take their government in 
their own hands, by wresting it out of the hands of those 



188 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

military usurpers who now hold it, for they are nothing more 
and nothing less. That is all that is involved in this contest, 
and I hope on this side of the chamber we shall never again 
hear one of our friends talking about subjugating either a 
State or the people of any State of this Union, but that we 
shall go on aiding them to do just precisely what the loyal 
people of Virginia are doing, what the loyal people of Ten- 
nessee are preparing to do, what the loyal people of North 
Carolina stand ready to do, and what the loyal people in 
Georgia and Alabama and Louisiana, and last perhaps of all, 
the loyal people of South Carolina will do in reconstructing 
themselves upon the Constitution of the United States. 

Hon. James B. Doolittle, 1861. 



MAKING WAR ON REBELS CONSTITUTIONAL. 

Mr. President, I have heard the Senator from Kentucky 
to-day, and I have heard him again and again, denounce the 
President of the United States for the usurpation of uncon- 
stitutional power. I undertake to say that without any 
foundation he makes such a charge of usurpation of unconsti- 
tutional power, unless it be in a mere matter of form. He 
has not, in substance ; and the case I put to the Senator the 
other day he has not answered, and I defy him to answer. 
I undertake to say that, as there are fifty thousand men, per- 
haps, in arms against the United States, in Virginia, within 
thirty miles of this capital, I, as an individual, though I am 
not President, though I am clothed with no official authority, 
may ask one hundred thousand of my fellow-men to volun- 
teer to go with me, with arms in our hands, to take every 
one of them, and, if it be necessary, to take their lives. Why 
do not some of these gentlemen who talk about usurpation 
and trampling the Constitution under foot, stand up here 
and answer ihat position, or forever shut their mouths ? I, 
as an individual, can do all this, though I am not President, 
and am clothed with no legal authority whatever, simply be- 
cause I am a loyal citizen of the United States ; I have a 
right to ask one hundred thousand men to volunteer to go 
with me and capture the whole of the rebels, and if it be 
necessary to their capture to kill half of them while I am 
doing it. No man can deny the correctness of the propo- 
sition. Away, then, with all this stuff, and this splitting of 
hairs and pettifogging here, when we are within the very 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 189 

sound of the guns of these traitors and rebels, who threaten 
to march upon the capital and subjugate the Government. 

Eon. James R. Doolittle, 1861. 



COERCION UNCONSTITUTIONAL, 

Me. President, I have tried on more than one occasion in 
the Senate, in parliamentary and respectful language, to ex- 
press my opinions in regard to the character of- our Federal 
system, the relations of the States to the Federal Govern- 
ment, to the Constitution, the bond of the Federal political 
system. They differed utterly from those entertained by the 
Senator from Oregon. Evidently, by his line of argument, he 
regards this as an original, not as a delegated Government, and 
he regards it as clothed with all those powers which belong to 
an original nation, not only with those powers which are dele- 
gated by the different political communities that compose it, 
and limited by the written Constitution that forms the bond 
of union. I have tried to show that, in the view that I take 
of our Government, this war is an unconstitutional war. I do 
not think the Senator from Oregon has answered my argu- 
ment. He asks, what must we do ? As we progress south- 
ward, and invade the country, must we not, said he, carry with 
us all the laws of war ? I would not progress southward and 
invade the country. The President of the United States, as I 
again repeat, in my judgment, only has the power to call out 
the military to assist the civil authority in executing the laws ; 
and when the question assumes the magnitude, and takes the 
form of a great political severance, and nearly half the mem- 
bers of the Confederacy withdraw themselves from it, what 
then? I have never held that one State, or a number of 
States, have a right without cause, to break the compact of 
the Constitution. But what I mean to say is, that you cannot 
then undertake to make war in the name of the Constitution. 
In my opinion they are out. You may conquer them; but do not 
attempt to do it under what I consider false political pretences. 
However, sir, I w T ill not enlarge upon that. I have developed 
these ideas again and again, and I do not care to re-argue 
them. Plence the Senator and I start from entirely different 
stand-points, and his pretended replies, are no replies at all. 
The Senator asks me, " What would you have us do ?" I 
have already intimated what I would have us do. I would 
have us stop the war. We can do it, I have tried to show 
that there is none of that inexorable necessity to continue 



190 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

this war which the Senator seems to suppose. I do not hold 
that constitutional liberty on this continent is bound up in 
this fratricidal, devastating, horrible contest. Upon the con- 
trary, I fear it will find its grave in it. The Senator is mis- 
taken in supposing that we can reunite these States by war. 
He is mistaken in supposing that eighteen or twenty millions 
upon the one side can subjugate ten or twelve millions upon 
the other ; or, if they do subjugate them, that you can restore 
constitutional Government as our fathers made it. You will 
have to govern them as territories, as suggested by the Sena- 
tor, if ever -they are reduced to the dominion of the United 
States, or, as the Senator from Vermont called them, " those 
rebellious provinces of this Union," in his speech to-day. 
Sir, I would prefer to see these States all reunited upon true 
constitutional principles to any other object that could be 
offered me in life; and to restore, upon the principles of our 
fathers, the union of these States, to me the sacrifice of one 
unimportant life would be nothing, nothing, sir. But I infin- 
itely prefer to see a peaceful separation of these States, than 
to see endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which 
I see the grave of public liberty and of personal freedom. 

Hon. J. G. Breckinridge, 1861. 



S 

THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH. 

The Senator asked if a senator of Rome had uttered these 
things in the war between Carthage and that power, how 
would he have been treated ? Sir, the war between Carthage 
and Rome, was altogether different from the war now waged 
between the United States and the Confederate States. I 
would have said — rather than avow the principle that one or 
the other must be subjugated, or perhaps both destroyed — 
let Carthage live and let Rome live, each pursuing its own 
course of policy and civilization. The Senator says that these 
opinions which I thus expressed and have heretofore expressed, 
are but brilliant treason ; and that it is a tribute to the character 
of our institutions that I am allowed to utter them upon the 
Senate floor. Mr. President, if I am speaking treason I am not 
aware of it. I am speaking what I believe to be for the good of 
my country. If I am speaking treason, I am speaking it in my 
place in the Senate. By whose indulgence am I speaking ? Not 
by any man's indulgence. I am speaking by the guarantees of 
that Constitution which seems to be here now so little respect- 
ed. And, sir, when he asked what would have been done 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 191 

with a Roman senator who had uttered such words, a certain 
Senator on this floor, whose courage has much risen of late, 
replies in audible terms : " he would have been hurled from 
the Tarpeian Rock." Sir, if ever we find an American Tar- 
peian Rock, and a suitable victim is to be selected, the people 
will turn not to me, but to that Senator who, according to 
the measure of his intellect and his heart, has been the chief 
author of the public misfortunes. He, and men like him, 
have brought the country to its present condition. Let him 
remember too, sir, that while in ancient Rome the defenders 
of the .public liberty were sometimes torn to pieces by the 
people, yet their memories were cherished in grateful remem- 
brance, while to be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock was ever 
the fate of usurpers and tyrants. I reply with the just indig- 
nation I ought to feel at such an insult oifered on the floor 
of the Senate chamber, to a Senator who is speaking in his 
place. Mr. President, I shall not longer detain the Senate. 
My opinions are my own. They are honestly entertained. I 
do not believe that I have uttered one opinion here, in regard 
to this contest, that does not reflect the judgment of the peo- 
ple I have the honor to represent. If they do, I shall find 
my reward in the fearless utterance of their opinions ; if they 
do not, I am not a man to cling to the forms of office and to 
the emoluments of public life, against my convictions and my 
principles ; and I repeat what I uttered the other day, that 
if, indeed, the Common weath of Kentucky, instead of attempt- 
ing to mediate in this unfortunate struggle, shall throw her 
energies into the strife, and approve the conduct and sustain 
the policy of the Federal administration, in what I believe to 
be a war of subjugation, and which is being proved every day 
to be a war of subjugation and annihilation, she may take her 
course. I am her son, and will share her destiny, but she will 
be represented by some other man on the floor of this Senate* 
Hon. J. C. Breckinridge, 1861. 



EVIL PREDICTIONS. 

The Senator from Kentucky stands up here in a manly 
way in opposition to what he sees is the overwhelming senti- 
ment of the Senate, and utters reproof, malediction, and pre- 
diction combined. Well, sir, it is not every prediction that 
is prophecy. It is the easiest thing in the world to ' do ; 
there is nothing easier, except to be mistaken when we have 
predicted. I confess, Mr. President, that I would not have 



192 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

predicted three weeks ago the disasters which have overtaken 
our arms ; and I do not think (if I were to predict now) that 
six months hence the Senator will indulge in the same tone 
of prediction which is his favorite key now. I would ask 
him, what would you have us do — a Confederate army with- 
in twenty miles of us, advancing or threatening to advance 
to overwhelm your Government ; to shake the pillars of the 
Union; to bring it around your head, if you stay here, in 
ruins ? Are we to stop and talk about an uprising sentiment 
in the North against the war ? Are we to predict evil, and 
retire from what we predict? Is not the manly part to go 
on as we have begun, to raise money, and levy armies, to or- 
ganize them, to prepare to advance, to regulate that advance 
by all the laws and regulations that civilization and humanity 
will allow in time of battle ? Can we do anything more? 
To talk to us about stopping is idle ; we will never stop. 
Will the Senator yield to rebellion ? Will he shrink from 
armed insurrection? Will his State justify it? Will its 
better public opinion allow it ? Shall we send a flag of truce ? 
What would he have? Or would he conduct this war so 
feebly, that the whole world would smile at us in derision ? 
What would he have ? These speeches of his, sown broad- 
cast over the land — what clear, distinct meaning have they? 
Are they not intended for disorganization in our very midst? 
Are they not intended to dull our weapons ? Are they not 
intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to ani- 
mate our enemies ? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, 
polished treason, even in the very Capitol of the Confederacy ? 
What would have been thought if, in another capitol, in 
another republic, in a yet more martial age, a senator as 
grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the Senator from 
Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flying over his shoul- 
ders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations 
of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was 
just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of 
peace ? What would have been thought if, after the battle 
of Cannae, a senator there had risen in his place and de- 
nounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure 
of its treasury, and every appeal to the old recollections and 
the old glories ? Sir, a Senator,* learned far more than my- 
self in such lore, tells me, in a voice that I am glad is audible, 
that he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. It 
is a grand commentary upon the American Constitution that 
we permit these words to be uttered. I ask the Senator to 

* Hon. John P. Hale. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 193 

recollect, too, what, save to send aid and comfort to the ene- 
my, do these predictions of his amount to? Every word 
thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confed- 
erate ear. Every sound thus uttered is a word (and, falling 
from his lips, a mighty word) of kindling and triumph to a 
foe that determines to advance. For me, I have no such 
word as a Senator to utter. For me, amid temporary de- 
feat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me to 
utter another word, and that word is bold, sudden, forward, 
determined war, according to the laws of war, by armies, by 
military commanders clothed with full power, advancing with 
all the past glories of the Republic urging them on to con- 
quest. I do not stop to consider whether it is subjugation 
or not. It is compulsory obedience — not to my will ; not to 
yours, sir ; not to the will of any one man ; not to the will 
of any one State ; but compulsory obedience to the Constitu- 
tion of the whole country. — Hon. E. D. Baker, 1861. 



SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH. 

The Senator from Kentucky chose the other day again 
and again to animadvert on a single expression in a little 
speech which I delivered before the Senate, in which I took 
occasion to say that if the people of the rebellious States 
would not govern themselves as States, they ought to be 
governed as Territories. The Senator knew fall well then, 
for I explained it twice — he knows full well now — that on 
this side of the chamber ; nay, in this whole chamber ; nay, 
in this whole North and West ; nay, in all the loyal States in 
all their breadth, there is not a man among us all who dreams 
of causing any man in the South to submit to any rule, either 
as to life, liberty or property, that we ourselves do not will- 
ingly agree to yield to. Did he ever think of that ? Sub- 
jugation for what? When we subjugate South Carolina 
what shall we do ? We shall compel its obedience to the 
Constitution of the United States; that is all. Why play 
upon words? We do not mean, we have never said, any 
more. If it be slavery that men should obey the Constitu- 
tion their fathers fought for, let it be so. If it be freedom, 
it is freedom equally for them and for us. We propose to 
subjugate rebellion into loyalty ; we propose to subjugate in- 
surrection into peace ; we propose to subjugate Confederate 
anarchy into constitutional Union liberty. The Senator well 
knows that we propose no more. I ask him, I appeal to his 



194 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

better judgment, now, what does he imagine we intend to 
do, if fortunately we conquer Tennessee or South Carolina — 
call it " conquer," if you will, sir — what do we propose to 
do? They will have their courts still, they will have their 
ballot-boxes still, they will have their elections still, they will 
have their representatives upon this floor still, they will have 
taxation and representation still, they will have the writ of 
habeas corpus still, they will have every privilege they ever 
had and all we desired. When the Confederate armies are 
scattered, when their leaders are banished from power, when 
the people return to a late repentant sense of the wrong they 
have done to a Government they never felt but in benignancy 
and blessing, then the Constitution made for all will be felt 
by all, like the descending rains from heaven which bless all 
alike. Is that subjugation? To restore what was, as it was, 
for the benefit of the whole country and of the whole human 
race, is all we desire and all we can have. Gentlemen talk 
about the Northeast. I appeal to Senators from the North- 
east, is there a man in all your States who advances upon the 
South with any other idea but to restore the Constitution of 
the United States in its spirit and its unity ? I never heard 
that one. I believe no man indulges in any dream of inflict- 
ing there any wrong to public liberty ; and I respectfully tell 
the Senator from Kentucky that he persistently, earnestly — I 
will not say wilfully — misrepresents the sentiment of the 
North and West when he attempts to teach these doctrines 
to the Confederates of the South. — Son. E. D. Baker, 1861. 



MEN AND MONEY, 



Sir, this threat about money and men amounts to nothing. 
Some of the States which have been named in that connec- 
tion, I know well. I know, as my friend from Illinois will 
bear me witness, his own State very well. I am sure that no 
temporary defeat, no monetary disaster, will swerve that 
State either from its allegiance to the Union, or from its de- 
termination to preserve it. It is not with us a question of 
money or of blood ; it is a question involving considerations 
higher than these. The great portion of our population are 
loyal to the core, and in every chord of their hearts. I tell 
the Senator that his predictions, sometimes for the South, 
sometimes for the middle States, sometimes for the North- 
east, and then wandering away in airy visions out to the far 
Pacific, about the dread of our people of the loss of blood 






SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 195 

and treasure, provoking them to disloyalty, are false in sen- 
timent and false in fact. The Senator from Kentucky is mis- 
taken in them all. Five hundred million dollars! What 
then ? Great Britain gave more than two thousand millions 
in the great battle for constitutional liberty which she led at 
one time almost single handed against the world. Five hun- 
dred thousand men ! What then ? We have them ; they are 
ours ; they are children of the country. They belong to the 
whole country; they are our sons; our kinsmen; and there 
are many of us who will give them all up before we abate 
one word of our just demand, or will retract one inch from 
the line which divides right from wrong. Sir, it is not a 
question of men or money in that sense. All the men, all 
the money, are, in our judgment, Well bestowed in such a 
cause. When we give them, we know their value. Know- 
ing their value well, we give them with the more pride and 
the more joy. 

Sir, how can we retreat? Sir, how can we make peace? 
Who shall treat ? What commissioners ? Who would go ? 
Upon what terms ? Where is to be your boundary line ? 
Where the end of the principles we shall have to give up ? 
What will become of constitutional government ? What 
will become of public liberty ? What of past glories ? What 
of future hopes ? Shall we sink into the insignificance of the 
grave — a degraded, defeated, emasculated people, frightened 
by the results of one battle, and scared at the visions raised 
by the imagination of the Senator from Kentucky upon this 
floor ? ISTo, sir ; a thousand times, no ! We will rally — if, 
indeed, our words be necessary — we will rally the people, the 
loyal people, of the whole country. They will pour forth 
their treasure, their money, their men, without stint, without 
measure. The most peaceable man in this body may stamp 
his foot upon this Senate chamber floor, as of old, a warrior 
and senator did, and from that single tramp there will spring 
forth armed legions. Shall one battle determine the fate of 
empire, or a dozen ? the loss of one thousand men or twenty 
thousand, of one hundred million dollars, or five hundred 
millions ? In a year's peace, in ten years at most, of peace- 
ful progress, we can restore them all. There will be some 
privation ; there will be some loss of luxury ; there will be 
somewhat more need for labor to procure the necessaries of 
life. When that is said, all is said. If we have the country, 
the whole country, the Union, the Constitution — free govern- 
ment — with these will return all the blessings of well-ordered 
civilization ; the career of the country will be one of great- 
ness and of glory such as, in the olden time, our fathers saw 



196 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

in the dim visions of years yet to come, and such as would 
have been ours to-day, if it had not been for the treason for 
which the Senator too often seeks to apologize. 

Son. E. D. Baker, 1861. 



THE PEACE MEN. 

I. 

The cry for " peace" comes from the enemies of the Gov- 
ernment. The leading voices that uplift it have never con- 
demned the outbreak of the war, the first drill of battalions, 
the first roar of cannon. The men who shout thus have been, 
from the first, in sympathy with the war-makers. They 
gloat over national disasters. They shriek for the assassina- 
tion of the President. They are branded for Jeff. Davis, 
on the shameless foreheads of their souls, deeper than Cali- 
fornia cattle are seared with the owner's mar J:. 

Martin Luther tells us that he used to be troubled seriously 
by visits from the devil at night. The devil seemed to take 
great pleasure in taunting him with being a sinner, and in 
bringing to his remembrance heinous transgressions that he 
had committed. Luther at last bethought him of a way 
,to rid himself of these homilies. One night the devil came 
in a very serious mood, to break down the reformer's confi- 
dence in God, and said : " Luther, you have nearly sinned 
away your time of grace." "I know it," exclaimed the re- 
former, " Holy Satan, pray for me !" The devil saw the 
joke, and left Luther free from disturbance for a month. 
, A cry for peace from filibusters and bosom friends of Wil- 
liam Walker ! A cry for the sacredness of human life from 
men who have plotted to overrun Mexico and Central Amer- 
ica, in order to lay the black foundations of a slave empire 
on soil dyed crimson ! A cry for light taxes from men who 
would have been too happy, six months ago, to pay two 
hundred millions, or a war with Spain, for Cuba ! A cry of 
sympathy with laboring classes from men who believe that 
bondage is the true basis of a State, and who applaud in their 
hearts the call of their allies in the South to restrict the right 
of suffrage and found a government of gentlemen ! A cry 
of economy from men of a. party that once administered the 
finances -of San Francisco! The hounds on the track of 
Broderick turned peace men, and affected with hysterics at 
the sniff of powder ! Wonderful transformation ! What a 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 197 

pleasant sight — a hawk looking so innocent, and preaching 
peace to doves, his talons loosely wound with cotton ! A 
clump of wolves trying to thicken their ravenous flanks with 
wool, for this occasion only, and composing their fangs to 
the work of eating grass ! " Holy Satan, pray for us !" 

II. 

We do not stand to receive lectures about peace from the 
sympathizers with rebellion ; we offer them. It is not for 
them to call our attention to bloody battle-fields and a 
groaning treasury, and hearts wrung with anguish, and 
homes darkened with despair. We press the picture upon 
them. When I think of what this country was last Novem- 
ber, — how vast its prosperity ; how rapid its march to greater 
0]3ulence; how various the ducts and bands which nature 
and art had opened and multiplied to sustain a common life ; 
when I think of the harmonious play of all the physical and 
commercial forces that knit a nation, and see how, from 
Eastport to Cape Mendocino, they were in operation as never 
before on an equal area of the earth, ennobling labor, build- 
ing up society in the wilderness, promoting education, filling 
horns of plenty for thousands of homes; when I think of the 
harvests that were gathered, and the blessings they were to 
bear to all districts of our land, and to distant shores; of the 
slight expense of the governing power over the immense area, 
and the insignificance of the military force that was subor- 
dinate to it ; when I recall the fact that all this peace, and 
affluence, and happiness was due to one piece of parchment 
called the Constitution of the United States, and that all 
which was necessary to its continuance was loyalty to that, 
and submission to a popular vote honestly thrown and an- 
nounced, as northern States had submitted many a time be- 
fore ; a submission, too, which would still leave ample re- 
sources in the hands of defeated States against open acts of 
aggression by the Government upon their rights — simply 
acknowledgment of the popular will for four short years, 
and the right of free discussion ; and w 7 hen I think of what 
the country is now ; the paralysis of commerce^; the devasta- 
tion of industry; the choking of the channels of intercourse ; 
the bitterness and hate ; the land groaning with cannon ; 
ports shut up ; peaceful vessels the prey of pirates ; hundreds 
of thousands withdrawn from wealth-producing labor and 
trained to deal slaughter: yes, the battle-fields that have 
drunk blood from civil strife; the noble men that have been 
cut off in an instant from a vista of honorable years ; the 



198 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

agonies of wounded and dying ; the woe in which thousands 
of hearts have been steeped ; and when I think that every 
river might now be sweeping only peaceful burdens, and 
every port might have been open to cheerful intercourse, and 
every latitude of the sea been safe for proud barks under the 
stars and stripes, and not a dollar of private property or 
national treasure been wasted by confiscation, or diverted 
from the channels that widen blessings : I can say, with 
Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, that " we realize — what I think 
the popular heart, in its forbearance, has never completely 
comprehended — the unspeakable and hellish atrocity of this 
rebellion. It is a perfect saturnalia of demoniac passion. 
From the reddened waters of Bull Run, and from the gory 
field of Manassas, there is now going up an appeal to God 
and to millions of exasperated men against those fiends in 
human shape, who, drunken with the orgies of an infernal 
ambition, are filling to its brim the cup of a nation's sorrow. 
Woe, woe to these traitors when this appeal shall be an- 
swered !" 

Do you, apologists for these madmen, sympathizers with 
their guilt, applauders of their success, accomplices in their 
crime — do you dare to talk to us of peace, dare take that 
blessed word on your foul lips, remembering what you have 
done ? Do you dare talk of peace before the guilt of break- 
ing peace is punished? Dare talk of peace simply that the 
ruffian desolators may enjoy an unshadowed victory? The 
effrontery of this clamor is as great as it would have been 
for tories in the revolution to have denounced Washington 
and the Congress for desolating the land with blood, appealed 
for instant terms with Great Britain, and begged to be en- 
trusted by the loyal men with power ! 

TJios. Starr King, 1861. 



THE TRUE PEACE PARTY. 

We do need a peace party here, a serried, serious, trium- 
phant one, that shall save the State against the civil gophers 
that are now undermining its prosperity, and place a man 
true to the Union in its highest seat. Civil war is our dan- 
ger. Let the candidate of the Joab party triumph, and set 
himself against the requisitions of the Government, and seek, 
in the administration of his office, to extend open aid to Mr. 
Jefferson Davis, and we shall have civil war, which will wipe 
out the memory of such trifles as tax bills from Washington. 






SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 199 

For the loyal men of California, who owe allegiance first to 
the Constitution of the country, would bear no such treason. 
They would arm against it. They would rally. They would 
sweep the perjurer from his, seat. They would send him 
where Missourians sent Claiborne Jackson. They would 
keep the Constitution supreme over the Governor's chair. 
They would do this in mercy to the State, as their serious 
Christian duty ; and I know ministers who, if they have not 
muscle enough to hold a musket, and do not measure enough 
around the chest to be mustered into service, would be wil- 
ling to load revolvers for troops, and tear up their Bibles for 
waddings. If we would have peace in this State, we must 
show a strong front of Union loyalty. We must turn an ear, 
stone deaf, to insidious treason. We must look to our pow- 
der, and not to what it costs. 

And to have peace in the nation — peace that will endure ; 
peace that will be noble ; peace that will be cheap — we must 
send up one chorus, amid reverses and disasters, even though 
the line of the Potomac be broken and Washington seized 
and sacked by Vandals. NTo terms with traitors. The Con- 
stitution again along the whole coast line of the nation, and 
over all the old acres that have once acknowledged the 
American rule ! Then we shall make William Cullen Bry 
ant's words prophetic : 

" Country, marvel of the Earth ! 

O realm, to sudden greatness grown ! 
The age that gloried in thy birth, 

Shall it behold thee overthrown ? 
Shall traitors lay that greatness low ? 

No, Land of hope and blessing, No ! 

" And we, who wear thy glorious name, 

Shall we, like cravens, stand apart, 
When those whom thou hast trusted aim 

The death-blow at thy generous heart ? 
Forth goes the battle-cry, and lo ! 

Hosts rise in harness, shouting, No ! 

" And they who founded, in our land, 

The power that rules from sea to sea, 
Bled they in vain, or vainly planned 

To leave their country great and free ? 
Their sleeping ashes, from below, 

Send up the thrilling murmur, No ! 

" Our humming marts, our iron ways, 

Our wind-tossed woods on mountain-crest, 
The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, 

The calm, broad Ocean of the West, 
And Mississippi's torrent flow, 
And loud Niagara, answer, No !" 

Thos. Starr King, 1861. 



200 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SOLDIER. 

Soldiers : next to the worship of the Father of us all, the 
deepest and grandest of human emotions is the love of the 
land that gave us birth. It is an enlargement and exaltation 
of all the tenderest and strongest sympathies of kindred and 
of home. In all centuries and climes it has lived and has de- 
fied .chains, and dungeons, and racks to crush it. It has 
strewed the earth with its monuments, and has shed undying 
"lustre on a thousand fields on which it l^as battled. Through 
the night of ages, Thermopylae glows like some mountain's 
peak on which the morning sun has risen, because twenty- 
three hundred years ago, this hallowing passion touched its 
mural precipices and its crowning crags. It is easy, however, 
to be patriotic in piping times of peace, and in the sunny 
hour of prosperity. It is national sorrow, it is war, with its 
attendant perils and horrors, that tests this passion, and 
winnows from the masses those who, with all their love of 
life, still love their country more. While your present po- 
sition is a most vivid and impressive illustration of patriotism, 
it has a glory peculiar and altogether its own. The merce- 
nary armies which have swept victoriously over the world, 
and have gathered so many of the laurels that history has 
.embalmed, were but machines drafted into the service of 
ambitious spirits whom they obeyed, and little understood 
or appreciated the problems their blood was poured out to 
solve. But while you have all the dauntless physical courage 
which they displayed, you add to it a thorough knowledge 
of the argument on which this mighty movement proceeds, 
and a moral heroism which, breaking away from the en- 
tanglements of kindred, and friends, and State policy, enables 
you to follow your convictions of duty, even though they 
should lead you up to the cannon's mouth. It must, how- 
ever, be added that with this elevation of position come 
corresponding responsibilities. Soldiers as you are by con- 
viction, the country looks not to your officers, chivalric and 
skilful as they may be, but to you and to each of you, for 
the safety of those vast national interests committed to the 
fortunes of this war. Your camp life will expose you to 
many temptations ; you should resist them as you would the 
advancing squadrons of the enemy. In every hour of peril 
or incitement to excess, you will say to yourselves, " Our 
country sees us," and so act as to stand forth soldiers, not 
only without fear, but also without reproach. Each moment 
not absorbed by the toils and duties of your military life, 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 201 

should, as far as practicable, be devoted to that mental and 
moral training without which the noblest of volunteers must 
sink to a level with an army of mercenaries. Alike in the 
inaction of the camp and amid the fatigues of the march, and 
the charge and shouts of battle, you will remember that you 
have in your keeping not only your own personal reputation, 
but the honor of your native State, and, what is infinitely 
more inspiring, the honor of that blood-bought and beneficent 
Republic whose children you are. Any irregularity on your 
part would sadden the land that loves you ; any faltering in 
the presence of the foe would cover it with immeasurable 
humiliation. You will soon mingle in the ranks with the 
gallant volunteers from the North and the West, and with 
me you will admire their moderation, their admirable disci- 
pline, and that deep determination whose earnestness with 
them has no language of menace, or bluster, or passion. 
When the men from Bunker Hill and the men from the 
" dark and bloody ground," unestranged from each other by 
the low arts of politicians, shall stand side by side on the 
same national battle-field, the heart of freedom will be glad. 

Son. Joseph Molt, 1861. 



EUEAL VOLUNTEEES. 

Within so brief a period no such gigantic power has ever 
been placed at the disposal of any government as that which 
has rallied to the support of this within the last few months, 
through those volunteers who have poured alike from hill and 
valley, city and village, throughout the loyal States. All 
classes and all pursuits have been animated by the same lofty 
and quenchless enthusiasm. While, however, I would make 
no invidious distinctions, where all have so nobly done their 
duty, I cannot refrain from remarking how conspicuous the 
hard-handed tillers of the soil of the North and the West 
have made themselves in swelling the ranks of our army. 
We honor commerce with its busy marts, and the work-shop 
with its patient toil and exhaustless ingenuity, but still we 
would be unfaithful to the truth of history did we not confess 
that the most heroic champions of human freedom and the 
most illustrious apostles of its principles have come from the 
broad fields of agriculture. There seems to be something in 
the scenes of nature, in her wild and beautiful landscapes, in 
her cascades and cataracts, and waving woodlands, and in 
the pure and exhilarating airs of her hills and mountains, that 

9* 



202 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

unbraces the fetters which man would rivet upon his fellow- 
man. It was at the handles of the plow and amid the 
breathing odors of its newly-opened furrows that the charac- 
ter of Cincinnatus was formed, expanded and matured. It 
was not in the city, but in the deep gorges and upon the 
snow-clad summits of the Alps, amid the eagles and the 
thunders, that William Tell laid the foundations of those 
altars to human liberty, against which the surging tides of 
European despotism have beaten for centuries, but thank 
God, have beaten in vain. It was amid the primeval forests 
and mountains, the lakes and leaping streams of our own 
land; amid fields of waving grain; amid the songs of the 
reaper and the tinkling of the shepherd's bell that were nur- 
tured those rare virtues which clustered star-like in the char- 
acter of Washington, and lifted him in moral stature a head 
and shoulders above even the demi-gods of ancient story. 

Son. Joseph SoU, 1861. 



DUTY OF THE INVADING ARMY. 

There is one most striking and distinctive feature of your 
mission that should never be lost sight of. You are not 
about to invade the territory of a foreign enemy, nor is your 
purpose that of conquest and spoliation. Should you occupy 
the South, you will do so as friends and protectors, and your 
aim will be not to subjugate that betrayed and distracted 
country, but to deliver it from the remorseless military des- 
potism by which it is trodden down. Union men, who are 
your brethren, throng in those States, and will listen for the 
coming footsteps of your army as the Scottish maiden of 
Lucknow listened for the airs of her native land. It is true 
that amid the terrors and darkness which prevail there, they 
are silenced and are now unseen, but be assured that by the 
light of the stars you carry upon your banner you will find 
them all. It has been constantly asserted by the conspirators 
throughout the South that this is a war of subjugation on 
the part of the Government of the United States, waged for 
the extermination of Southern institutions, and by Yandals 
and miscreants, who, in the fury of their passions, spare 
neither age nor sex nor property. It will be the first and the 
highest duty of the American army, as it advances South, by 
its moderation and humanity, by its exemption from every 
excess and irregularity, and by its scrupulous observance of 
the rights of all, to show how foully both it and the Govern- 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 203 

merit it represents have been traduced. When, therefore, 
you enter the Sonth, press lightly upon her gardens and 
fields ; guard sacredly her homes ; protect, if need be, at the 
point of your bayonets her constitutional rights, for you will 
thereby not only respond fully to the spirit and objects of 
this war, but you will exert over alike the oppressed and the 
infatuated portion of her people a power to which the most 
brilliant of your military successes might not attain. But 
when you meet in battle array those atrocious conspirators 
who, at the head of armies and through woes unutterable, 
are seeking the ruin of our common country, remember that 
since the sword flamed over the portals of Paradise until 
now, it has been drawn in no holier cause than that in which 
you are engaged. Remember, too, the millions whose hearts 
are breaking under the anguish of this terrible crime, and 
then strike boldly, strike in the power of truth and duty, 
strike with a bound and a shout, well assured that your 
blows will fall upon ingrates and traitors and parricides, 
whose lust for power would make of this bright land one 
vast Golgotha, rather than be baulked of their guilty aims — 
and may the God of your fathers give you the victory ! 

Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861.' 



THE BENEFIT OF EEVEESES. 

SoldiePvS : When Napoleon was about to spur on his le- 
gions to combat on the sands of an African desert, pointing 
them to the Egyptian pyramids that loomed up against the 
far-off horizon, he exclaimed, " From yonder summits forty 
centuries look down upon you." The thought was sublime 
and electric ; but you have even more than this. When you 
shall confront those infuriated hosts, whose battle-cry is, 
" Down with the Government of the United States," let your 
answering shout be, " The Government as our fathers made 
it ;" and when you strike, remember that not only do the 
good and the great of the past look down upon you from 
heights infinitely above those of Egyptian pyramids, but that 
uncounted generations yet to come are looking up to you, 
and claiming at your hands the unimpaired transmission to 
them of that priceless heritage which has been committed to 
our keeping. I say its unimpaired transmission — in all the 
amplitude of its outlines, in all the symmetry of its match- 
less proportions, in all the palpitating fulness of its bless- 
ings ; not a miserably shrivelled and shattered thing, charred 



204 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

by the fires and torn by the tempests of revolution, and all 
over polluted and scarred by the bloody poniards of traitors. 
Soldiers : you have come up to your present exalted posi- 
tion over many obstacles and through many chilling discour- 
agements. One of those chances to which the fortunes of 
war are ever subject, and against which the most consum- 
mate generalship cannot at all times provide, has given a 
momentary advantage to the forces of the rebellion. Grouchy 
did not pursue the column of Bulow, and thus Waterloo was 
won for Wellington at the very moment that victory, with 
her laurelled wreath, seemed stooping over the head of Na- 
poleon. So Patterson did not pursue Johnston, and the 
overwhelming concentration of rebel troops that in conse- 
quence ensued was probably the true cause why the army of 
the United States was driven back, excellent as was its dis- 
cipline, and self-sacrificing as had been its feats of valor. 
Panics, from slight and seemingly insignificant causes, have 
occurred in the best drilled and bravest of armies, and they 
prove neither the want of discipline nor of courage on the 
part of the soldiers. This check has taught us invaluable 
lessons, which we could not have learned from victory, while 
the dauntless daring displayed by our volunteers is full of 
promise for the future. We shall rapidly recover from this 
discomfiture, which, after all, will serve only to nerve to yet 
more extraordinary exertions the nineteen millions of people 
who have sworn that this Republic shall not perish ; and 
perish it will not, perish it cannot, while this oath remains. 
When we look away to that scene of carnage, all strewed 
with the bodies of patriotic men who courted death for them- 
selves that their country might live, and then look upon the 
homes which their fall has rendered desolate forever, we 
realize — what I think the popular heart in its forbearance has 
never completely comprehended — the unspeakable and hellish 
atrocity of this rebellion. It is a perfect saturnalia of demo- 
niac passion. From the reddened waters of Bull Run, and 
from the gory field of Manassas, there is now going up an 
appeal to Go i. and to millions of exasperated men against 
those fiends in human shape, who, drunken with the orgies of 
an infernal ambition, are filling to its brim the cup of a na- 
tion's sorrows. Woe, woe, I say, to these traitors, when this 
appeal shall be answered! — Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861. 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 205 



THE PEOBLEM FOE THE UNITED STATES. 

The Union cannot expire as the snow melts from the rock, 
or a star disappears from the firmament. % When it falls, the 
crash will be heard in all lands. Wherever the winds of 
heaven go, that will go, bearing sorrow and dismay to mil- 
lions of stricken hearts ; for the subversion of this Govern- 
ment will render the cause of constitutional liberty hopeless 
throughout the world. What nation can govern itself, if 
this nation cannot ? What encouragement will any people 
have to establish liberal institutions for themselves, if ours 
fail ? Providence has laid upon us the responsibility and the 
honor of solving that problem in which all coming genera- 
tions of men have a profound interest — whether the true 
ends of government can be secured by a popular representa- 
tive system. In the munificence of His goodness, He put us 
in possession of our heritage, by a series of interpositions 
scarcely less signal than those which conducted the Hebrews 
to Canaan; and He has, up to this period, withheld from us 
no immunities or resources which might facilitate an auspi- 
cious result. Never before was a people so advantageously 
situated for working out this great problem in favor of human 
liberty ; and it is important for us to understand that the 
world so regards it. 

If, in the frenzy of our base sectional jealousies, we dig 
the grave of the Union, and thus decide this question in the 
negative, no tongue may attempt to depict the disappoint- 
ment and despair which will go along with the announcement 
as it spreads through distant lands. It will be America, 
after fifty years' experience, giving in her adhesion to the 
doctrine that man was not made for self-government. It will 
be freedom herself proclaiming that freedom is a chimera ; 
Liberty ringing her own knell, all over the globe. And, 
when the citizens or subjects of the governments which are 
to succeed this Union shall visit Europe, and see, in some 
land now struggling to cast off its fetters, the lacerated and 
lifeless form of Liberty laid prostrate under the iron heel of 
Despotism, let them remember that the blow which destroyed 
her was inflicted by their own country. 

" So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, 
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart. 
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel ; 
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest 
Drank -the last life-drop of his bleeding breast." 

Rev. Henry A. Board/nan, 1861. 



206 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE CONSTITUTION EQUAL TO THE OEISIS. 

I do not know any one who is more interested — no one 
here, certainly, is so much interested — in the suppression of 
the rebellion, as I am personally. You see the conflagration 
from the distance ; it blisters me at my side. You can sur- 
vive the integrity of the nation ; we, in Maryland, would live 
on the side of a gulf, perpetually tending to plunge into its 
depths. It is for us life and liberty ; it is for you greatness, 
strength and prosperity. 

If you are interested, still more am I ; if illegal measures 
are necessary for salvation, I am more tempted than you to 
resort to them ; and yet I desire to say that there is no cir- 
cumstance connected with all the difficulties we are called 
upon to deal with, — nothing, in my sight, so threatening in 
the future, nothing which I lind myself so unable to contem- 
plate with satisfaction, as the temper of the public mind in 
dealing with this great rebellion. Not that I have any ten- 
derness for the parricidal hands that have lifted weapons 
against the heart of the nation; — let them perish! but in 
their grave I do not wish to see American liberty buried. 
The energy of the nation having now been aroused, her em- 
battled hosts lining the whole border, flaming with the con- 
flict by whose light we read that the nation will not die a 
dog's death, and will not perish of rottenness off the face of 
the earth, ; — it becomes us now to turn our eyes to the prin- 
ciples upon which the contest is to be waged, to hold those in 
authority responsible, not merely for energy, but for legality 
and constitutionality, — to silence the sneer with which men 
are met when they recall their rulers to the limits of law and 
the Constitution. Let them understand that the American 
Government will not be so degraded in the eyes of history as 
to be driven to the necessity of inaugurating revolution for 
the purpose of suppressing insurrection. 

They who speak about extraordinary methods — of the 
necessity of usurpation, — of the necessity of neglecting the 
" technicalities of law," as they politely term them — the 
necessity of departing from all " red-tap eism," which is the 
, ordinary phrase to describe now the regular operations of the 
Government, conducted by wise men — these men must be 
taught, (and it is for you to teach them,) that it does not 
prove a man is disloyal because he thinks the Constitution 
better than they do, because he believes it not only powerful 
in peace, but powerful in war ; that its asgis is not only so 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 207 

broad a^ to protect the people in times of quiet ; but in the 
midst of civil war, the surest protection ; in the face of na- 
tional disaster the safest refuge. 

Hon.H. Winter Davis, 1861. 



THE DANGER OF EXASPERATING THE REBELS. 

Ix all ages respect for the dead has been held to be a 
necessary virtue in a brave and generous character. To in- 
flict outrage upon a slain enemy, even, has heretofore been 
confined to dark corners of the earth. Such practices are too 
vile and mean to be tolerated in the light of civilization. 
Hence the fiendish spirit of the rebel leaders is painfully ap- 
parent in the treatment of our heroic dead. They were 
stripped naked, and left for days unburied. Many were 
buried in trenches, face downward, as a mark of indignity. 
Some were boiled, to get the bones for trophies, and heads 
cut olf, that the skulls might be kept for drinking cups. 
Many human bones were found scattered through the rebel 
huts, sawed into rings. By acts of violence and crime like 
these the rebels signalized their first victory over the army 
of the Republic. With savage and malignant hate, they 
tortured, slew, and desecrated. The monstrous treason 
which was commenced in perjury and theft, was continued 
in cowardly cruelty and barbarism. Well may I say the cli- 
max of malignity was early reached. But has it diminished 
by long months of forbearance ? Let the score of brave offi- 
cers and men of General Curtis' command, who were slain 
by the poisoned food left by the retreating rebels, bear wit- 
ness. Let the fire-ship filled with deadly missiles, sent down 
upon our vessel, invited by a flag of truce and displaying 
another, below New Orleans ; the throat-cutting of sick and 
unarmed men at Shiloh, as they lay in their tents ; the fre- 
quent murder of parties bearing flags of truce ; the dismal 
tales of southern prison-houses ; the hanging of Union men ; 
the disregard of age or sex by the rebels in their unrestrained 
wrath ; let these and a thousand other barbarities give testi- 
mony how much danger there is of exasperating the traitors 
in arms. Talk of exasperating men like these ! As w r ell 
might Michael have feared to exasperate the rebellious angels 
whom he hurled from the battlements of heaven at the fiat 
of the Almighty. As well might the English have feared to 
exasperate the Sepoys, who slew in cold blood all whom they 
overpowered. It is only by sharp and sudden blows you 



208 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

can put down this rebellion ; not by faint-heartedness ; not 
by calculations how your mortal enemies will regard your 
measures. Why, sir, the same advice that now seeks to in- 
duce us to do nothing that will exasperate rebels, would, if 
carried to lgitimate conclusions, cause our armies to be dis- 
banded, surrender this capital to the enemy, and give over 
the Union men of the South to hopeless ruin. In the same 
spirit the last Congress were advised not to pass the Force 
Bill, to make no appropriations for the navy and army, to do 
nothing to exasperate the men who had commenced to steal 
public property, organize rebellion, and trample upon the 
laws. It, will forever remain a blot upon the administration 
of James .Buchanan, that for months after the great conspir- 
acy had developed itself by acts of ruthless violence, he wrung 
his hands in the halls of the White House, and lamented his 
hard fate, fearing to strike the blow that should save the na- 
tion, lest he might exasperate the traitors who bearded him 
even in his privacy, and publicly denounced him as a falsifier. 
The nation is a year older than it then was, and we are bur- 
dened with a weighty experience. We see that no act or 
word of conciliation will avail with the secessionists ; that 
this contest must be fought out to the bitter end by every 
means in our power consistent with the laws of war. The 
event has proved that it would have been better for the coun- 
try had this fact been realized in July last. Then we would 
have had less talk about conciliation — which has been in vain ; 
utterly idle — and more effective blows upon the front of the 
horrid "monster Secession. — Son. Aaron /Sargent, 1862. 



ABOLITION AND ANTI-SL A VERY. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : No public speaker, on rising to 
address an assembly, has a right to presume that, because at 
the outset he receives a courteous and even warm approval, 
therefore they are prepared to indorse all his views and utter- 
ances. Doubtless there are some points, at least, about which 
we very widely differ ; and yet, I must frankly confess, I 
know of no other reason for your kind approval this evening, 
than that I am an original, uncompromising, irrepressible, out- 
and-out, unmistakable, Garrisonian abolitionist. By that 
designation I do not mean one whose brain is crazed, whose 
spirit is fanatical, whose purpose is wild and dangerous, but 
one wdiose patriotic creed is the Declaration of American In- 
dependence, whose moral line of measurement is the Golden 






SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 209 

Rule, whose gospel of humanity is the Sermon on the Mount, 
and whose language is that of Ireland's liberator, O'Connell 
— " I care not what caste, creed or color slavery may as- 
sume, whether it be personal or political, mental or corporal, 
intellectual or spiritual, I am for its instant, its total aboli- 
tion. I am for justice in the name of humanity, and accord- 
ing to the law of the living God." 

I know that to be an abolitionist is not to be with the 
multitude — on the side of the majority — in a popular and 
respectable position ; and yet I think I have a right to ask of 
you, and of ah who are living on the soil of the Empire 
State, and of the people of the North at large, why it is that 
you and they shrink from the name of abolitionist ? Why is " 
it that, while you profess to be opposed to slavery, you nev- 
ertheless desire the whole world to understand that you are 
not radical abolitionists? What is the meaning of this? 
Why are you not all abolitionists? Your principles are 
mine. What you have taught me, I adopt. What you have 
taken a solemn oath to support, as essential to a free govern- 
ment, I recognize as right and just. The people of this State 
profess to believe in the Declaration of Independence. That 
is my abolitionism. Every man, therefore, who disclaims 
abolitionism, repudiates the Declaration of Independence. 
Does he not ? " All men are created equal, and endowed by 
their Creator with an inalienable right to liberty." Gentle- 
men, that is my fanaticism — that is all my fanaticism. All I 
ask is, that this declaration may be carried out everywhere in 
our country and throughout the world. It belongs to man- 
kind. Your Constitution is an abolition Constitution. Your 
laws are abolition laws. Your institutions are abolition in- 
stitutions. Your free schools are abolition schools. I be- 
believe in them all ; and all that I ask is, that institutions so 
good, so free, so noble, may be everywhere propagated, eve- 
rywhere accepted. And thus it is that I desire, not to curse 
the South, or any portion of her people, but to bless her 
abundantly, by abolishing her infamous and demoralizing 
slave institution, and erecting the temple of liberty on the 
ruins thereof. 

I believe in democracy ; but it is the democracy which 
recognizes man as man, the world over. It is that democracy 
which spurns the fetter and the yoke for itself, and for all 
wearing the human form. And therefore I say, that any man 
who pretends to be a democrat, and yet defends the act of 
making man the property of his fellow-man, is a dissembler 
and a hypocrite, and I unmask him before the universe. 
We profess to be Christians. Christianity — its object is 



210 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

to redeem, not to enslave men ! Christ is-our Redeemer. I 
believe in Him. He leads the anti-slavery cause, and always 
has led it. The Gospel is the Gospel of freedom ; and any 
man claiming to be a Christian, and to have within him the 
same mind that was in Christ Jesus, and yet dares to hold 
his fellow-man in bondage, as a mere piece of perishable 
property, is recreant to' all the principles and obligations of 
Christianity. 

It is a shame that we of the North should any longer stand 
apart. What are all your paltry distinctions worth ? You 
are not abolitionists. Oh, no. You are only anti-slavery! 
Dare you trust yourself in Carolina, except, perhaps, at Port 
Royal ? You are not an ultra anti-slavery man ; there is 
nothing ultra about you. You are only a Republican ! Dare 
you go to New Orleans ? Why, the President of the United 
States, chosen by the will of the people, and duly inaugurated 
by solemn oath, is an outlaw in nearly every slave State in 
this Union ! He cannot show himself there, except at the 
peril of his life. And so of his Cabinet. I think it is time, 
uncler these circumstances, that we should all hang together, 
or, as one said of old, "we shall be pretty sure, if caught, to 
hang separately." The South cares nothing for these nice 
distinctions among us. If we avow that we "are at all opposed 
to slavery, it is enough, in the judgment of the South, to 
condemn us to a coat of tar and feathers, and to general out- 
lawry. — William Lloyd Garrison, 1862. 



WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE? 

Who are responsible for this war ? If I should go out 
into the streets for a popular reply, it would be, " The aboli- 
tionists; it is all owing to the abolitionists. If they had not 
meddled with the subject of slavery* everything would have 
gone on well ; we should have lived in peace all the days of 
our lives. But they insisted upon meddling with what 
doesn't concern them ; they indulged in censorious and harsh 
language against the slaveholders, and the result is, our na- 
tion is upturned, we have immense armies looking each other 
fiercely in the face, and our glorious Union is violently 
broken asunder." 

But, in the language of your chairman, in a brief letter 
which he sent to the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania 
Anti-Slavery Society, a few weeks ago, "*My opinion is this : 
There is war because there was a Republican party. There 






, SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 211 

was a Rejmblican party because there was an Abolition party. 
There was an Abolition party because there was slavery. 
Now, to charge the war upon republicanism is merely to 
blame the lamb that stood in the brook. To charge it upon 
abolitionism is merely to blame the sheep for being the lamb's 
mother. But to charge it upon slavery is to lay the crime 
flat at the door of the wolf where it belongs. To end the 
trouble, kill the wolf. I belong to the party of wolf-killers." 

And let all the people say Amen ! 

But consider the absurdity of this charge. Who are the 
avowed abolitionists of our country? I have told you they 
occupy a very unpopular position in society — and certainly 
very few men have yet had the moral courage to glory in the 
name of abolitionist. They are comparatively a mere hand- 
full. And yet they have overturned the Government ! They 
have been stronger than all the parties and all the religious 
bodies of the country— stronger than the Church, and strong- 
er than the State. Indeed ! Then it must be because with 
them is the power of God, and it is the truth which has 
worked out this marvellous result. 

How many abolition presses do you suppose exist in this 
country? We have, I believe, three or four thousand jour- 
nals printed in the United States ; and how many abolition 
journals do you suppose there are ? You can count them all 
by the fingers upon your hand ; yet, it seems, they are more 
than a match for all the rest put together. This is very ex- 
traordinary ; but, our enemies being judges, it is certainly 
true. 

" But the abolitionists have used very hard language." 
Well, it is certain that a very remarkable change, in regard 
to this, has taken place within a short time. They who have 
complained of our hard language, as applied to the .slave- 
holders, are now for throwing cannon-balls and bomb-shells 
at them ! They have no objection to blowing out their brains, 
but you must not use hard language ! Now, I would much 
rather a man would hurl a hard epithet at my head than the 
softest cannon-ball or shell that can be found in the army of 
the North. As a people, however, we are coming to the 
conclusion that, "after all, the great body of the slaveholders 
are not exactly the honest, honorable and Christian men that 
we mistook them to be. It is astonishing, when any wrong 
is done to us, how easily we can see its true nature. What 
an eye-salve it is ! If any one picks our pocket, of course he 
is a thief; if any one breaks into our house, he is a burglar; 
if any one undertakes to outrage us, he is a scoundrel. And 
now that these slaveholders are in rebellion against the Gov- 



212 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

eminent, committing piracy upon our commerce, confiscating 
Northern property to the amount of hundreds of millions of 
dollars, and plunging the country into all the horrors of civil 
war, why, of course, they are pirates — they are swindlers — 
they are traitors of the deepest dye ! Let me tell you one 
thing, and that is, they are just as good as they ever were. 
They are just as honest, just as honorable, and just as Chris- 
tian as they ever were. Circumstances alter cases, you know. 
While they were robbing four millions of God's despised 
children of a different complexion from our own, stripping 
them of all their rights, selling them in lots to suit purcha- 
sers, and trafficking in their blood, they were upright, patri- 
otic, Christian gentlemen ! Now that they have interfered 
with us and our rights, have confiscated our property, and 
are treasonably seeking to establish a rival confederacy, they 
are downright villains and traitors, who ought to be hanged 
by the neck until they are dead. No, my friends, no stain of 
blood rests on the garments of the abolitionists. They have 
endeavored to prevent the awful calamity which has come 
upon the nation, and they may wash their hands ininnocency, 
and thank God that in the evil day they were able to stand. 
This fearful state of things is not of men ; it is of Heaven. 
As we have sowed, we are reaping. The whole cause of it 
is declared in the memorable verse of the prophet : " Ye 
have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty, every 
man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold, 
I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to 
the pestilence, and to the famine." That is the whole story. 
This is the settlement day of God Almighty for the unparal- 
leled guilt of our nation ; and if we desire to be saved, we 
must see to it that we put away our sins, " break every yoke, 
and let the oppressed go free," and thus save our land from 
ruin. — William Lloyd Garrison, 1862. 



THE SOUTH MUST BE ANNIHILATED. 

We are accustomed to use the words North and South 
familiarly in times like these. They once meant the land 
"toward the pole and the land toward the sun. They have a 
deeper significance at present. By the North I. mean the 
civilization of the nineteenth century; I mean that equal and 
recognized manhood up to which the race has struggled by 
the toils and battles of nineteen centuries ; I mean free speech, 
free types, open Bibles — the welcome rule of the majority • 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 213 

I mean the Declaration of Independence ! And by the South, 
I mean likewise a principle, and not a locality ; an element of 
civil life in fourteen rebellious States. I mean an element 
which, like the days of Queen Mary and the Inquisition, 
cannot tolerate free speech, and puuishes it with the stake. 
I mean the aristocracy of the skin, that considers the Decla- 
ration of Independence a delusion, and democracy a snare— - 
that one-third of the race are born booted and spurred, and 
the other two-thirds ready saddled for that third to ride. I 
mean a civilization which prohibits the Bible by statute to 
every sixth man of its community, and puts a matron in a 
felon's cell for teaching a black sister to read. I mean the 
intellectual, social, aristocratic South — the thing that mani- 
fests itself by barbarism and the bowie-knife, by bullying and 
L} T nch-law, by ignorance and idleness, by the claim of one 
man to own his brother, by statutes making it penal for the 
State of Massachusetts to bring an action in her courts, by 
statutes, standing on the books of Georgia to-day, offering 
five thousand dollars foi* the head of William Lloyd Garrison. 
That South is to be annihilated. This country will never 
know peace nor Union until the South, (using the word in 
the sense I have described) is annihilated, and the North is 
spread over it ! It is a conflict which will never have an end 
until one or the other elements subdues its rival. Therefore 
we should be, like the South, penetrated with an idea, and 
ready with fortitude and courage to sacrifice everything to 
that idea. Why, no man can fight Stonewall Jackson, an 
honest fanatic on the side of slavery, but John Brown, an 
equally honest fanatic on the other. They are only chemical 
equals, and will neutralize each other. You cannot neutral- 
ize nitric acid with cologne water. You cannot hurl William 
H. Seward at Jeff. Davis. 

When England conquered the Highlands, she held them — 
held them until she could educate them ; and it took a gene- 
ration. That is just what we have to do with the South ; 
annihilate the old South, and put a new one there. You do 
not annihilate a thing by abolishing it. You must supply the 
vacancy. In the Gospel, when the chambers were swept 
and garnished, the devils came back, because there were no 
angels there. And if we should sweep Virginia clean, Jeff. 
Davis would come back with seven other devils worse than 
himself, if he could find them, and occupy it, unless you put 
free institutions there. 

Some men say, begin it by exporting the blacks. If you 
do, you export the very fulcrum of the lever ; you export the 
very best material to begin with. The nation that should 



214 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

shovel down the Alleghanies, and then build them up again, 
would be a wise nation, compared with the one that should 
export four million blacks, and then import four million of 
Chinese to take their places. To dig a hole, and then fill it 
up again, to build a wall for the purpose of beating out your 
brains against it, would be Shakesperian wisdom compared 
with such an undertaking. Colonize the blacks ! A man 
might as well colonize his hands ; or, when the robber enters 
his house, he might as well colonize his revolver. What we 
want is systematic national action. Never until we welcome 
the negro, the foreigner, all races as equals, and, melted to- 
gether in a common nationality, hurl them all at despotism, 
will the North deserve triumph, or earn it at the hands of a 
just God. 

But the North will triumph. I hear it. Do you remem- 
ber that disastrous siege in India, when the Scotch girl raised 
her head from the pallet of the hospital, and said to the sick- 
ening .hearts of the English, "I hear the bagpipes; the 
Campbells are coming !" And they said, " Jessie, it is deli- 
rium." " No, I know it ; I heard it far off." And in an 
hour the pibroch burst upon their glad ears, and the banner 
of England floated in triumph over their heads. So I hear 
in the dim distance the first notes of the jubilee rising from 
the hearts of the millions. Soon, very soon, you shall hear 
it at the gates of the citadel, and the stars and stripes shall 
guarantee liberty forever, from the lakes to the gulf! 

Wendell Phillips, 1863. 



EFFECT OF THE WAR ON THE NATIONAL COURAaE. 

I. 

The nation needed a reinvigoration of its courage, and the 
war has brought it. The privations of camp life, the hard- 
ships and fatigues of transportation, the perils of exposure, 
hunger, pestilence, the terrors of the battle-field, and the 
more gloomy probabilities of capture by a ruthless and vin- 
dictive foe — all these must be faced, and with the necessity 
came the spirit and the men to meet it ; and the stern but 
profitable trial which at first was limited to the ready and 
the forward — the bravest and most generous of us all — the 
exigencies of an impending draft have brought home to 
every household and to every bosom. And what must be 
the result ? Where there were tens at the beginning of the 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 215 

war, I presume there are hundreds now — and I trust there 
will be tens of thousands ere its close — who would not hesi- 
tate, at the call of God, to take their lives in their hands, 
and go forth to the post of danger; who, for a righteous 
cause, could look death itself in the eye with an unmoved 
nerve$ retaining coolness to direct and strength to strike the 
needed blow. 

It remains to be seen whether, in this baptism of blood, 
the moral courage of the nation shall also get renewed — 
whether, as a people, we shall gain strength at last to face 
the tremendous moral issues which underlie this outward 
agitation ; questions from which Ave have shrunk too long, 
and with a pitiable timidity — dodging behind compromises 
and party traditions, hushing up discussion,, ever striving to 
shift our responsibility to other shoulders — but from which 
it seems now the purpose of God that we, the people, shall 
escape no longer. 

Slavery — slavery — slavery — O do not tremble and turn 
pale at the word ! it is one with which we must grow fa- 
miliar. American slavery — why should all the .world but 
Americans be free to utter the word, and fearless to discuss 
the thing ? Slaver v — the stalking-horse (I grant) of radi- 
cals and agitators — the bugbear of timid conservatives — the 
"little joker" of political tricksters and demagogues; but 
still, slavery, the question of the generation — the touch- 
stone of our political Avisdom and virtue — the crime hitherto 
aud the curse of the republic — the hinge, therefore, on Avhich 
God will make its future destiny to turn — have Ave courage 
at last to look it calmly in the face ? have we moral strength 
enough to work out and adopt a policy concerning it, Avhich 
shall be at once right and safe, humane and wise, dutiful to 
God and just to all men ? 

The question is upon you, my countrymen. It is a ques- 
tion for the men of this generation to decide ; and all the 
signs of these terrible times summon you to a brave dis- 
charge of the duty. Either before this war is ended or as 
soon as it is ended, you must act ; and what tongue can tell 
the magnitude of the issues which Avill then turn on this sin- 
gle pivot, whether you dare to do right ! Have you the 
moral courage to obey the inspirations of reason and the 
Word of God, regardless of what you know to be unworthy 
and base? HaA r e you the courage to go away from the 
counting-house, aAvay from the. committee-room — to go forth 
from the pestilential atmosphere of a corrupt artificial so- 
ciety, and to decide upon the nation's duty, and your OAvn, 
under the pure face of heaven and in the light of God's eter- 



216 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

nities? Will you dare to forget commercial and political 
expediency, and all material interests, in settling a question 
of honor and right? Will you be bold enough to ignore old 
party issues, to break the bonds of party fealty, to disregard 
and (if needs be) discard your party leaders, who — many of 
them spoiled by a bad political education, and all of them at 
their wits' end in this appalling crisis — must now be in- 
structed and newly inspired by you? And, having thought 
the honest thought, will you dare to speak the manly word, 
no matter who may tremble or who may frown at your te- 
merity — speak it kindly and in the love of all men, but speak 
it frankly and firmly and fully, with a fixed determination 
(God helping you) to do wrong to none, even the wickedest, 
and to withhold right from none, even the weakest of man- 
kind! 

II. 

The problem now in process of solution among us — the 
problem of American slavery — is a strangely complicated 
one, involving the conflicting interests of many different 
States, different races, different orders of men and classes in 
community. All are sensitive and jealous, and clamorous to 
be heard. But I am persuaded that the most important party 
in the controversy — the only party of any great account in the 
sight of God — is he who in the esteem of men is the meanest 
and the least of all, he who is most silent in the assertion of his 
own claims, and whose claims all others are most disposed to 
ignore — I mean the negro, the object of universal odium and 
contempt, yet possessed of every essential human attribute, 
and every essential human right, and therefore fittest of all 
to be Selected by God as the test of our faith in Him, and in 
the great principles of impartial justice, of which we claim to 
be the especial champions among men. 

Tried by this test, how much or how little of moral cour- 
age shall we be found to possess ? Dare we, in the adjust- 
ment of this question — Oh ! dare we treat the negro practi- 
cally as what we in theory acknowledge him to be, a man and 
a brother ? as, in all essential respects, our equal before God 
and our own laws ? The poor negro — the mean, the ignorant, 
the low, lazy, lying negro — the heir of an inferior organiza- 
tion, (I do. not question it,) the degraded victim of the lust 
and tyranny of a more powerful race — do we dare to ac- 
knowledge that we discern in him the image of the eternal 
God, sharing with us in the moral ruins of the fall, and em- 
braced on the same terms with us in the glorious sweep of 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 217 

redemption? And when the proper time has come, will we 
dare to proclaim him a man ? and, standing by the shrines 
of freedom which our fathers reared, to swear by our fathers' 
God that, to the full extent of our power, he shall be pro- 
tected, like other men, in the enjoyment of all God-given 
rights — protected alike from the haughty rapacity of southern 
oppressors, and from the meaner and more cruel prejudice 
and jealousy of his fellow-laborers at the North ? As God 
himself is true and noble and great, the vindicator of the op- 
pressed and the refuge of the poor, so truly do I believe that 
on this question hangs the fate of the nation. If we cannot 
muster strength to meet it — I was about to say, God help us ! 
But God will not help those who thus refuse his instructions 
and trample on his law of love. If we can, and do, then I be- 
lieve the victory already won. When the heart of this people 
is right toicards the negro , — rather let me say, towards God 
in the negro — his great controversy with America will be at an 
end ; and thenceforth the track of her future will be like the fa- 
bled road along which, in the Oriental mythology, the perfected 
Gaudama journeyed through chaos to the celestial seats of 
wisdom and repose. Mountains of difficulty will subside into 
smooth and level plains ; golden bridges will shoot across the 
yawning chasms of peril ; wild beasts and savage men who 
seek her ill, will glare along the track, spell-bound and impo- 
tent ; all things "will conspire to greet and assist her pro- 
gress : while from the whirling axles of her triumphant cha- 
riot new stars shall sparkle forth with ceaseless iteration, and 
plant themselves serenely in the heaven of a glorious and en- 
during prosperity. — J. H. Raymond^ 1863. 



THE POWER OF HEROIC EXAMPLE. 

We must not forget the specific and invaluable influence 
exerted on the spirit of a people by those examples of signal 
heroism and chivalrous self-devotion for which a magnanimous 
war gives occasion, and which it exalts, as peace cannot, be- 
fore men's minds. 

Almost five centuries ago, under the tumbling w T alls of 
Sempnch, where Leopold stood with 4,000 Austrians to crush 
the 1400 Swiss who dared to confront him, wdien again and 
again each rush of the mountaineers had failed to break the 
line of pikemen, and the liberties of the cantons seemed reeling 
into hopeless ruin, with sublimest self-sacrifice, one, springing 



218 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEK. 

upon the foe with wide-spread arms, gathered into his breast 
a sheaf of spears, and made a way above his body for that 
triumphant valor which pierced and broke the horrid ranks, 
and set a new and bloody seal to the rightful autonomy of 
the mountain republics. And till Mont Blanc ceases to greet 
with earliest smiles the purpling dawn, and till the Rhone 
runs back to flood its glacial source — the hardy Switzer will 
not forget the daring deed and magic name of Arnold Win- 
kelried ! 

More than half way from our day to the flood, — before 
Herodotus read his history, before ISTehemiah rebuilt Jeru- 
salem, before Cincinnatus was dictator at Rome, — under 
the shadow of Mount (Eta, upon the road from Thessaly south 
towards Athens and towards Argos, a .thousand men, Spar- 
tans and Thespians, fell, to a man, unwilling to retreat before 
the invader. 

The stone lion that afterwards stood there was not only the 
emblem, of what they were, but of what they made all Greece 
to be. - Of that stern valor the stranger did " tell," according 
to the inscriptions, not alone the "Lacedemonians," but all 
the world, that they " lay there obeying their laws." 

Springs of salt and iron remain to mark the sf)ot, welling 
around the steps of the traveller, as if they had sprung from 
that hot steel so fiercely wielded ; as if they would symbolize 
the thought that has flown from that centre of heroism through 
the history of mankind. It is not even irreverent to say, that 
save one cross, beneath which earth herself did shiver, no 
other hath lifted its head so high, or flung its arms so wide 
abroad to scatter inspiring influence, as did that cross on 
which the Persian nailed in fury the dead Leonidas. So it has 
been in all time since. There is a contagion in such exam- 
ples that smites the souls of generous men. Conscience and 
reason, and every sympathy accepts their lesson. The veil is 
lifted a new height, where time no more is its narrow domain ; 
the earth no more its only area ; where moral greatness is 
more than wealth, and the supreme glory of personal sacrifice 
attracts, rewards the great endeavor. The cavalry charge at 
Balaklava — it may have been in its origin a mistake; but the 
impetuous rush to death of those six hundred across the flood 
of sheeted flame that Russian batteries poured upon them, 
will not pass, in its great influence, from English history, till 
the fast-anchored isle has been scuttled and sunk. The pal- 
ace is richer, and the cottage is comelier in the light of the 
fact. 

Such examples as these become great powers in civilization. 
History hurries from the drier details, and is touched with 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 219 

enthusiasm as she draws near to them. Eloquence delights 
to rehearse and impress them. The songs of a nation 
repeat their story, and make their triumph sound again 
through the silver cymbals of speech. Legends prolong and 
art commemorates them. Language itself takes new images 
from them ; and words that are themselves " half-battles," 
are suddenly born at their recital. The very household life 
is exalted ; and the humblest man feels his position higher, 
and expresses his sense of it in a more dauntless bearing, as 
he sees that heroism still lives in the world ; that men of his 
own race and stuff, perhaps of his own neighborhood even, 
have faced so calmly such vast perils. 

And by and by we shall see more clearly than now we can, 
the great influence thus exerted on our own national career. 
When at last from the thunder and flame on the top of the 
mount the nation comes, as come it will, with its very face 
shining from the heat and the splendor which it there has 
encountered, then shall it appear as it cannot before, that no 
life hath been more productive than that which closed before 
its prime, sprinkling with blood the stony steeps of this as- 
cent! Then shall it appear that the delicate hands which 
have changed silk gloves for iron gauntlets have swept there- 
by the chords which vibrate into answers that distant ages 
still shall hear ! Yea, then shall it appear that never yet was 
forum reared, or senate chamber builded to be the fit and equal 
theatre for eloquence so thrilling and so majestic as that impe- 
rial eloquence of great deeds which shook the soul of the whole 
people from the thundering bluffs this side of Leesburg ! 
Better than new Californias every year are such examples to. 
a nation that would be noble ! Its very language and life 
must be lost before their force shall have ceased to inspire it, 

B. S. Storrs, Jr., 1863. 



THE KDT& OF DAHOMEY AND JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

There is a country called Dahomey in Africa. The gov- 
ernment is a despotism, pure and simple — hell-born, God-de- 
fying — without disguises or pretensions to be other than it 
is. The king has founded his commercial prosperity upon 
the slave-trade. He makes war upon the neighboring tribes, 
thus procuring slaves for exportation. His people manufac- 
ture spears, swords, daggers, clubs ; but his chief staple is 
men, women, children," and. young girls. -The royal bed- 
chamber is paved with skulls ; the roof is adorned with jaw- 
bones of chiefs he has slain in battle. A few years ago he 



220 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

caused to be built a reservoir, and collected human beings 
for sacrifice — enough to fill it with blood — so that he could 
appear on those gory waves in a boat, and his admiring sub- 
jects behold him in all the greatness of his power and the 
beauty of his glory. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand here to defend the king of 
Dahomey. When this dark ruler shall be asked at the bar 
of his Maker, " Why hast thou done this ?" I believe he 
will answer, " I had no light — I had no Christ. Father, for- 
give me !" And will not the Infinite Mercy cover him with 
its mantle? Ladies and gentlemen, there is another land, 
where the word of God flows in streams broader than the 
greatest river. Yet in that land, almost on the estate of 
Washington, by order and under the very eye of Jefferson 
Davis, ten thousand prisoners of war, who have given their 
lives for Christian liberty and for the right of free labor, 
whose only crime is defending their legitimate government, 
are held in Libby Prison in Richmond by a usurped, vindic- 
tive, tottering, poverty-stricken authority, so that many of 
them are starving to death ! 

I have placed the king of Dahomey and Mr. Davis to- 
gether, because they belong together. The two gentlemen 
are associates in business. They do the same work, deal in 
the same article, and in the same spirit — the spirit of savage 
despotism, and the lowest pecuniary speculation. The king 
of Dahomey sweeps the adjoining territories with his armies, 
in order to procure a supply of the glorious staple, while Mr. 
Davis has organized this rebellion for the purpose of creating 
a large demand. The firm consists of three parties : the 
king of Dahomey is the resident agent in Africa ; Mr. Davis, 
the head partner, resides, for the present, in Richmond; the 
third partner, of inferior rank, but equal utility and merit, is 
the slave-trader — the ferocious pirate who carries the human 
cargo from Africa to Cuba, and whom the success of the re- 
bellion would admit into the ports of New Orleans, Charles- 
ton, New York and Boston. Both empires have the same ob- 
ject, and are built on the same corner-stone. If Mr. Davis suc- 
ceeds, it will consolidate and extend the empire of Dahomey. 
If the king of Dahomey and his compeers be suppressed, the 
whole enterprise of Mr. Davis must fail for want of supply. 

It is true the bed-chamber of Mr. Davis is not paved with 
human skulls ; but has not his gigantic crime laid a hundred 
thousand — yes, three or four hundred thousand — heads in 
the dust, and carried anguish into almost every family of the 
country? It is true he has not filled a cistern at Richmond 
with blood, and thus outwardly revealed himself to his ad- 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 221 

miring followers in a boat ; but the waves of blood upon 
which he has attempted to float his barque into power — are 
they not far greater in quantity than was ever shed by his 
royal partner ? They are marked by the Christians of the 
earth ; and God has doubtless noted them in that great book 
out of which, we are told, " the dead shall be judged accord- 
ing to their works."— Hon. Theo. S. Fay, 1863. 



OUR TERRITORY A TRUST. 

The religious-minded among our people feel that in the 
territory committed to us there is a high and solemn trust — 
a national trust. We are taught that in some sense the 
world itself is a field, and every Christian nation acknowl- 
edges a certain responsibility for the moral condition of the 
globe. But how much nearer does it come when it is one's 
country ! And the Church of America is coming to feel 
more and more that God gave us this country, not merely 
for material aggrandizement, but for a glorious triumph for 
the Church of Christ. Therefore we undertook to rid the 
territory of slavery. Since slavery has divested itself of its 
municipal protection, and has become a declared public enemy, 
it is our duty to prevent it from blighting this far western 
territory. When I stand and look out upon that immense 
territory as an individual man, as a citizen, as a Christian 
minister, I feel myself asked, " Will you permit that country 
to be darkened by this cloudy storm — will you permit the 
cries of bondmen to issue from that fair territory, and do 
nothing for their liberty ?" What are we doing ? Sending 
our ships round the globe, carrying missionaries to the Sand- 
wich Islands, to the islands of the Pacific, to Asia, to all 
Africa. And yet when this work of redeeming our conti- 
nent from the heathendom of slavery lies before us, there 
are men who counsel us to give it up to the devil, 'and not 
try to do a thing. Ah! independently of pounds and pence, 
independently of national honor, independently of all merely 
material considerations, there is pressing on every conscien- 
tious Northerner's mind this highest of all considerations — ■ 
our duty to God to save that continent from the blast and 
blight of slavery. Yet how many are there who up, down, 
and over all England are saying, " Let slavery go — let slavery 
go?" 

It is recorded, I think, in the biography of that most noble 
of your own countrymen, Sir. H. Fowell Buxton — that on 



222 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

one occasion a huge favorite dog was seized with hydropho- 
bia, and was dashing hither and thither. With wonderful 
courage he seized the creature by the neck and collar, and 
against the animal's mightiest efforts, rushing here and there, 
against wall and fence, and up the street, held him until help 
could be got. If there had been Englishmen there, of the 
stripe of the Times, they would have said to Fowell Bux- 
ton, " Let him go ;" but is there one here who does not feel 
the moral nobleness of that man, who rather than let the 
mad animal go down the street biting children, and women, 
and men, risked his life and prevented the animal from doing 
evil? And shall we allow that hell-hound of slavery, mad 
as it is, go biting millions in the future ? We will peril life 
and limb and all we have first. 

These truths are not exaggerated — they are minified 
rather than magnified in my statement ; and you cannot tell 
how powerfully they are influencing us unless you were 
standing in our midst in America ; you cannot understand 
how firm that national feeling is which God has bred in the 
North on this subject. It is deeper than the sea ; it is firmer 
than the hills ; it is serene as the sky over our head, where 
God dwells. — Henry Ward JBeecher, London, 1863. ( 



THE PEINOIPLE INVOLVED I¥ THE WAE. 

The sober American regards the war as part of that awful 
yet glorious struggle which has been going on for hundreds 
of years in every nation between right and wrong, between 
virtue and vice, between liberty and despotism, between free- 
dom and bondage. It carries with it the whole future con- 
dition of our vast continent — its laws, its policy, its fate. 
And standing in view of these tremendous realities we have 
consecrated all that we have — our children, our wealth, our 
national strength — and we lay them all on the altar and say, 
"It is better that they should all perish than that the North 
should falter and' betray this trust of God, this hope of the 
oppressed, this Western civilization." If we say this of 
ourselves, shall we say less of the slave-holders ? If we are 
willing to do these things, shall we say, " Stop the war for 
their sakes ?" If we say this of ourselves, shall we have 
more pity for the rebellion, for slavery seeking to blacken a 
continent with its awful evil, desecrating the social phase 
of national independence by seeking only an independence 
that shall enable them to oppress four millions of humanity ? 






SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 223 

Shall we do for them what we won't do for ourselves? 
Standing by my cradle, standing by my "hearth, standing 
by the altar of the church, standing by all the places that 
mark the name and memory of heroic men who poured their 
blood and lives for principle, I declare that in ten or twenty 
years of war we will sacrifice everything we have for prin- 
ciple. 

If the love of popular liberty is dead in Great Britain you 
will not understand us ; but if the love of liberty lives as it 
once lived, and has worthy successors of those renowned 
men that were our ancestors as much as yours, and whose 
example and principles we inherit to make fruitful as so 
much seed corn in a new and fertile land — -then you will un- 
derstand our firm, invincible determination — deep as the sea, 
firm as mountains, but calm as the heavens above us — to 
fight this war through at all hazards and at every cost. 

Against this statement of facts and principles no public 
man and no party could stand up for one moment in England 
if it were permitted to stand upon its own merits. It is, 
therefore, sought to darken the light of these truths and to 
falsify facts. It is declared that the North has no sincerity. 
It is declared that the North treats the blacks worse than the 
South does. A monstrous lie from beo-innin^ to end. Itisde- 
Glared that emancipation is a mere political trick — not a moral 
sentiment. It is declared that this is a cruel, unphilanthropic 
squabble of men gone mad with national vanity. Oh, what 
a pity that a man should "fall nine times the space that 
measures day and night" to make an apostasy which dishon- 
ors his closing days, and to wipe out the testimony for liberty 
that he gave in his youth !* But even if all this monstrous 
lie about the North — this needless slander — were true, still 
it would not alter the fact that Northern success will carry 
liberty — Southern success, slavery. For when society dashes 
against society, the results are not what the individual mo- 
tives of the members of society would make them — the re- 
sults are what the institutions of society make them. When 
your army stood at Waterloo, they did not know what were 
the tremendous moral consequences that depended on that 
.battle. It was not what the individual soldiers meant nor 
thought, but what the English empire — the national life be- 
hind, and the genius of that renowned kingdom which sent 
that army to victory — meant and thought. And even if the 
President were false — if every Northern man were a juggling 
hypocrite — that does not change the Constitution; and it 

* Allusion is here made to Lord Brougham. 



224 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

does not change the fact that if the North prevails she car- 
ries Northern ideas and Northern institutions with her. 

Henry Ward JBeecher, London, 1863. 



ENGLAND AGAINST WAE, 

I hear a loud protest against war. Ladies and gentle- 
men, Mr. Chairman, — there is a small band in our country 
and in yours — I wish their number were quadrupled — who 
have borne a solemn and painful testimony against all wars, 
under all circumstances ; and although I differ with them on 
the subject of defensive warfare, yet when men that rebuked 
their own land, and all lands, now rebuke us, though I can- 
not accept their judgment, I bow with profound respect to 
their consistency. But excepting them I regard this British 
horror of the American war as something wonderful. Why, 
it is a phenomenon in itself! On what shore has not the 
prow of your ships dashed ? What land is there with a 
name and a people where your banner has not led your sold- 
iers ? And when the great resurrection reveille shall sound 
it will muster British soldiers from every clime and people 
under the whole heaven. Ah ! but it is said this is a war 
against your own blood. How long is it since you poured 
soldiers into Canada, and let all your yards work night and 
day to avenge the taking of two men out of the Trent ? 
Old England shocked at a war of principle! She gained her 
glories in such a war. Old England ashamed of a war of 
principle ! Her national ensign symbolizes her history — the 
cross in a field of blood. And will you tell us — who inherit 
your blood, your ideas, and your pluck — that we must not 
fight? The child must heed the parents until the parents 
get old and tell the child not to do the thing that in early 
life they whipped him for not doing. And then the child 
says, father and mother are getting too old ; they had better 
be taken away from their present home and come to live with 
us. Perhaps you think that the old island will do a little 
longer. Perhaps you think there is coal enough. Perhaps 
you think the stock is not quite run out yet ; but whenever 
England comes to that state that she does not go to war for 
principle, she had better emigrate, and we will get room for 
her. — Henry Ward Leecher, London, 1863. 






SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 225 



THE MEASURES 01* THE WAR. 

In the beginning of this contest we were peculiarly Eng- 
lish. If I have observed aright, England goes into wars to 
make blunders — in the first part of them always — but you 
will notice that in the end it is not England that has blundered. 
I have, noticed, in studying the Peninsular War under Wel- 
lington, that at the beginning, for months, indeed for the 
first whole year, it was a series of horrid blunders, no sym- 
pathy coming from home, and money being squandered by 
the frauds of contractors ; but, if I recollect aright, at last 
that same Wellington drove every Frenchman out of the 
Peninsula — and did not stop his course until he swept the 
face of Europe. And so it is with us. We have so much 
English blood in our Yankee veins that when we began this 
war we blundered and blundered ; but we are doing better 
and better every step. There has been time enough for mere 
enthusiasm to cool in the North. Enthusiasm is like the 
vapor, just enough condensed to let the sun striking upon it 
fill it with gorgeous colors ; but when still further it con- 
denses, and falls in drops for the thirsty man to drink, or 
carries the river to the cataract, then it has become useful 
and substantial. Enthusiasm at first is that airy cloud ; but 
when it has become a principle in the hearts of the people, 
then it becomes substantial; and such is the case in the 
North. Enthusiasm has changed its form, and is now based 
on substantial moral principle. The loss of our sons in battle 
has been grievous ; but we accept it as God's will, and we 
are determined that every martyred son shall have a repre- 
sentative in one hundred liberated slaves. Never was such a 
unity of Christian men in the North as there is to-day. The 
only platform in America, on which this subject can be dis- 
cussed is this — that the war must be carried on till the Union 
is re-established. The Americans are a practical people. 
They know their own business. No one so well as they are 
able to judge of what they want ; and when they have de- 
liberately arrived at a firm resolve, they surely are to be re- 
garded, at least with respect, if not with sympathy. We are 
told that we are breaking our Constitutional obligations by 
the measures we have taken ; but we were forced to adopt 
those measures, and the reasons are abundant and plain. 
How ? When a fire first breaks out, the engineer goes down 
and plays upon the fire, thinking that he will be able to save 
the furniture and the neighboring houses ; but, as the de- 
vouring element increases, and thre'atens destruction to all 



226 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

around, the engineer says, " Bring me powder," and he blowa 
np the neighboring house, then the next, and then the next, 
until a sufficient gap is made to prevent the spread of the 
conflagration. When he began he did not think that he 
would require to sacrifice so much, and so it is with us. 
When this rebellion commenced we thought to put it down, 
and to .maintain, at the same time, the rights of the States ; 
but, when the war assumed such proportions as seemed to 
threaten destruction to the whole Government, at last the 
President issued a proclamation, declaring that the rebellion 
had assumed such proportions that, for ',the sake of saving 
the country, he intended to exercise the power he possessed, 
and to confiscate the total property of the South for the sake 
of saving the Union and the Constitution. 

Henry Ward JBeecher, Edinburgh, 1863. 



THE HONOEED DEAD. 

Let us pause upon the threshold of our discourse to pay a 
tribute to our heroes. On either side has been manifested 
the noblest courage, and patience, and endurance. Ten thou- 
sand youth have dropped the blossom of their lives. Alas ! 
that for so many it should be a deaths utterly dead ! More 
and more will years reveal that young Southern heroes died 
for an evil cause. Would that so much bravery had had a 
better cause. Time will bring no venerableness and no af- 
fection to defeated tyranny. Men's enthusiasms never go 
backward to search for the deeds of oppressors, to garland 
them with evergreen honor. They die indeed, who die for 
slavery. And lapse of years, and growing justice, and nobler 
humanities, will only make the mistake more dreadful, and 
their oblivion more certain. It is indeed a sad future for 
those who mourn for sons slain under the dark banner of 
slavery. No future historian will feel sacred enthusiasm in 
recovering their names. N"o rejoicing millions will teach 
their children to lisp their names with gladness. The best 
that can be done for them by patriotism, is to draw a vail 
over their life, and to let them be forgotten. Over their 
burial-ground the hand of charity can write only this : Let 
their names and their mistakes be forgotten. 

But how bright are the honors which await those who 
with sacred fortitude and patriotic patience have endured all 
things that they might save their native land from division 
and from the power of corruption! The honored dead! 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 227 

They that die for a good cause are redeemed from death. 
Their names are gathered and garnered. Their memory is pre- 
cious. Each place grows proud for them who were born there. 
There is to be, ere long, in every village and in every neighbor- 
hood, a glowing pride in its martyred heroes. Tablets shall pre- 
serve their names. Pious love shall renew their inscriptions as 
time and the unfeeling elements decay them. And the 
national festivals shall give multitudes of precious names to 
the orator's lips. Children shall grow up under more sacred 
inspirations whose elder brothers, dying nobly for their 
country, left a name that honored and inspired all who bore 
it. Orphan children shall find thousands of fathers and 
mothers to love and help those whom dying heroes left as a 
legacy to the gratitude of the public. 

Oh, tell me not that they are dead— that generous host, 
that airy army of invisible heroes! They hover as a cloud 
of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet 
speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal lan- 
guage ? Are they dead that yet act ? Are they dead that 
yet move upon society, and inspire the people with nobler 
motives and more heroic patriotism ? 

Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. He 
loas your son ; but now he is the nation's. He made your 
household bright; now his example inspires a thousand 
households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now 
brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he 
was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is 
augmented, set free, and given to all. He has died from the 
family, that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall 
be forgotten or neglected ; and it shall, by-and-by be con- 
fessed, as of an ancient hero, that he did more for his country 
by his death than' by his whole life. 

Neither are they less honored who shall bear through life 
the marks of wounds and sufferings. Neither epaulette nor 
badge is so honorable as wounds received in a good cause. 
Many a man shall *envy him who henceforth limps. So 
strange is the transforming power of patriotic ardor, that 
men shall almost covet disfigurement. Crowds will give 
way to hobbling cripples, and uncover in the presence of 
feebleness and helplessness. And buoyant children shall 
pause in their noisy games, and with loving reverence honor 
them whose hands can work no more, and whose feet are" no 
longer able to march except upon that journey which brings 
good men to honor and immortality. Oh, mother of lost 
children ! set not in darkness nor sorrow whom a nation 
honors. Oh, mourners of the early dead! they shall live 



228 THE PATETOTIC SPEAKEE. 

again, and live forever. Your sorrows are our gladness. 
The nation lives, because you gave it men that loved it better 
than their own lives. And when a few more days shall have 
cleared the perils from around the nation's brow, and she 
shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty, with justice upon 
her forehead, love in her eyes, and truth upon her lips, she 
shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to her 1 
heart, and whose life, given to her, shall live with her life 
till time shall be no more. 

Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, 
every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and 
every lake shall cherish its honored register; and till the 
mountains are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow, till the 
clouds are weary of replenishing springs, and the springs 
forget to gush, and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept 
fresh with reverent honors which are inscribed upon the 
book of National Remembrance ! 

Henry Ward JBeecher, 1863. 



CONDUCT OF THE 00L0KED PEOPLE. 

Let us not forget those that cannot remember themselves, 
or make sign in our midst. I desire to express in the 
presence of God's people, and before Almighty God, my 
profound gratitude for that eminent and evident interpo- 
sition of divine providence which has been manifested in the 
good conduct of the people of African descent among us. I 
thank God for that wonderful wisdom which they that are 
yet enchained and within the lines of bondage have mani- 
fested. It was in their power to have done' themselves and 
us much mischief, by giving way to intemperate desires or 
feelings. They have been held as in the hollow of God's 
hand. Nor can any remember in any newspaper, or in any 
man's mouth, one word of complaint, for three years, to have 
been uttered against — one word of fault to have been found 
with— the great mass of millions of men that have heard the 
war for liberty thundering within their reach, and yet have 
maintained quiet, patiently waiting for the revelation of 
God's mercy toward them. I thank God for the endurance, 
for the patience, for the conscientious good conduct of those 
men whom it has been our wont to hear represented as mon- 
sters who only wanted a chance to carry riot and rapine and 
devastation through the world. There never has been a 
people so many and so tempted that behaved so well as the 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 229 

slaves of the South. And they that have become freedmen — 
how have they helped us ! I mean not by shovel and 
spade, though they have helped us much by these. I mean 
not by their labor, but by manifesting the truth which we 
have witnessed, and which we have believed in — though it 
has been much disputed, — that a man brought suddenly out 
of slavery into liberty is not dangerous — that it is safe to 
emancipate. There are some men that are still, by force of 
old legendary lore, talking about the dangers of emancipa- 
tion. Around from the delta of the Mississippi, for fifteen 
hundred miles, till you touch the coast of North Carolina, 
there has been one wide belt of emancipation ; and point me 
to a mischief or an irregularity arising from it. I bring the 
testimony of our officers, Southern born and Northern, that 
the colored people are behaving worthy of their liberty. It 
is safe to emancipate. 

I thank God that while we were striving for the right of 
manhood in colored men, He by His providence, that is so 
much wiser than the wisdom of the wisest, has led them to 
demonstrate what we are trying to prove — and to demon- 
strate it so as to meet just that apprehension which needs to 
be met. The colored soldiers that have been regimented and 
taken to the field, by their courage, by their docility, by their 
good conduct in the most fiery trials, have shown that they 
were men. I am sorry that so large a part of human society 
yet lives so low that the capacity of a man to show the cour- 
age of an animal is the best test that he is a man ; but so it 
is ! There is nothing that will m^ke the common people so 
sympathize with the black man as io know that he fights well. 
He does fight well, and he is a man because he fights well ! 
War is not thought to be a civilizer, yet men may have been 
held so low that even war is elevation— and so it has been 
with the colored people. They go up a great way before 
they have a right to touch the sword ; and when they have 
taken their lives in their hands, and, with enthusiasm inspiring 
their hearts, have hewn their way on the rocky path to man- 
hood ; when this war has ceased, and a hundred thousand 
colored men can show wounds received in heroic service, or 
give other evidence that they have bravely fought for our 
country, I will put these men before the nation, and say, 
"They have given their blood to your blood; will you let 
them or their kind be trampled under foot any more ?" 

Henry Ward Beech er, 1863. 



230 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEE. 



THE STRENGTH OF THE AMERICAN GO VEEN MEN T. 

The enemies of popular right and power have been point- 
ing to the dreadful proof which is afforded in America, that 
an extended suffrage is a thing to be shunned as the most 
calamitous thing possible to a country. I will not refer to 
the speeches that have dealt with this question in this man- 
ner, or to the newspapers which have so treated it. I believe 
now that a great many people in this country are beginning 
to see that those who have been misleading them for the last 
two or three years have been profoundly dishonest or pro- 
foundly ignorant. If I am to give my opinion upon it, I 
should say that that which has taken place in America with- 
in the last three years affords the most triumphant answer to 
charges of this kind. Let us see the Government of the 
United States. I might say a good deal in favor of it in the 
South even, but we will speak of the free States. In the 
North they have a suffrage which is almost what here would 
be called a manhood suffrage. There are frequent elections, 
vote by ballot, and ten thousand, twenty thousand, and one 
hundred thousand persons vote at an election. Will any- 
body deny that the Government at Washington, as regards 
its own people, is the strongest Government in the world at 
this hour ? And for this simple reason : because it is based 
on the will, and the good will, of an instructed people. 
Look at its power ! I am not now discussing why it is, or 
the cause which is developing this power ; but power is the 
thing which men regard in these old countries, and which 
they ascribe mainly to European institutions ; but look at the 
power which the Ilnited States have developed ! They have 
brought more men into the field, they have built more ships 
for their navy, they have shown greater resources than any 
nation in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look at the 
order which has prevailed at their elections, at which, as you 
see by the papers, fifty thousand, or one hundred thousand, 
or two hundred and fifty thousand persons voting in a given 
State, with less disorder than you have seen lately in three 
of the smallest boroughs in England. Look at their indus- 
try. Notwithstanding this terrific struggle, their agriculture, 
their manufactures and commerce proceed with an uninter- 
rupted success. They are ruled by a President, chosen, it is 
true, not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but from 
the people, and the one whose truthfulness and spotless honor 
have claimed him universal praise ; and now the country that 
has been vilified through half the organs of the press in Eng 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 231 

land during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, as 
an example to be shunned by many of your statesmen — that 
country, now in mortal strife, affords a haven and a home for 
multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the old 
governments of Europe ; and, when this mortal strife is over 
— when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when 
the Union is cemented afresh — for I would say, in the lan- 
guage of one of our own poets addressing his country, 

" The grave's not dug where traitor hands shall lay, 
In fearful haste, thy murdered corse away" — 

then Europe and England may learn that an instructed dem- 
ocracy is the surest foundation of government, and that edu- 
cation and freedom are th& only sources of true greatness and 
true happiness among any people. 

John Bright, of England, 1863. 



THE CAUSE OF THE UNION SURE TO SUCCEED. 

I tell you candidly that if it were not for one cause, I 
should regard as hopeless and useless the attempt to subju- 
gate the Southern States. - It is the object and purpose with 
which the war was begun, that in my opinion renders success 
to the secessionists impossible. We were told in the House 
of Commons, by one who was once the great champion of 
democracy, and of the rights and privileges of the unsophis- 
ticated millions, that this civil war- was originated because 
the South wished to establish free trade principles, and that 
the North would not allow it. I travelled in the United 
States in 1859, the year before the fatal shot was fired at Fort 
Sumter, which has had such terrible reverberations ever since. 
I visited Washington during the session of Congress. Now I 
carry a flag; and wherever I go, whenever I travel abroad, 
whether it be in France or America, Austria or Russia, I at 
once become the centre of all those who have strong convictions 
and purposes in reference to free trade principles. Well, I 
confess to you, what I confessed to my friends when I re- 
turned, that I was disappointed when at Washington in 1859, 
because there was so little interest felt on the free trade ques- 
tion. There was no party formed, no public agitation ; there 
was no discussion whatever upon the subject of free trade 
and protection. The political field was wholly occupied by 
one question, and that question was slavery. I will mention 
an illustrative fact which I have not seen cited ; to my mind 



232 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

it is conclusive on this subject. In December, 1860, while 
Congress was sitting, and when the country was in an agony 
of suspense, fearing the impending rupture, Congress ap- 
pointed a committee of their body, comprising thirty-three 
members, being one representative for every State then in 
the Union. That committee, called the Committee of Thirty- 
three, sat from December 11th, 1860, to January 14th, 1861. 
They were instructed by Congress to inquire into the peril- 
ous state of the Union, and try to devise some means by 
which the catastrophe of a secession could be averted. Here 
is a report of the proceedings of that committee ; there are 
forty pages. I have read every line. The representatives of 
the slave States were invited by the representatives of the 
free States to state candidly and frankly what were the terms 
required in order that they might continue peaceably in the 
Union. In every page you see their propositions brought for- 
ward, but from beginning to end there is not one syllable said 
about tariff or taxation ; from beginning to end there is not 
a grievance alleged but that which was connected with the 
maintenance of slavery. There are propositions calling on 
the North to give increased security for the maintenance of 
that institution. They are invited to extend the area of sla- 
very, to make laws by which fugitive slaves should be given 
up ; they are pressed to make treaties with foreign powers 
by which foreign powers are required to give/ up fugitive 
slaves ; but from beginning to end no grievance is mentioned 
except the one connected with slavery. It is slavery, slavery, 
slavery, from the first page to the last. Is it not astonishing ' 
that, in the face of facts like these, any one should have the 
temerity, with any regard to decency or any sense of self- 
respect, to get up in the House of Commons and say seces- 
sion has been upon a question of free trade and protection ? 
This is a war to perpetuate and extend human slavery. It 
is a war not to defend slavery as it, was left by their ances- 
tors — I mean a thing to be retained and apologized for — it is 
a war to establish a slave empire, in which slavery shall be 
made the corner-stone of the social system, and shall be de- 
fended and justified on scriptural and ethnological grounds. 
Well, I say, God pardon the man who, in this year of grace, 
1863, should think that such a project as that could be 
crowned with success. — Richard Cobden, of England, 1863. 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 233 



CONDITION'OF THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 

It has been a fashion of late to talk of an extension of the 
franchise as something not to be tolerated, because it is as- 
sumed that the mass of the people are not fitted to take a 
part in government, and they point to America, and France, 
and other places, and draw comparisons between this country 
and other countries. Now, I hope I shall not be considered 
revolutionary, because at my age I don't want any revolutions. 
They won't serve me, I am sure, or anybody that belongs 
to me. England may compare very favorably with most 
other countries if you draw the line in society tolerably high, 
and if yon compare the condition of the rich and the upper 
classes of this country, or a considerable portion of the middle 
classes with the same classes abroad. I don't think a rich 
man, barring the climate, which is not very good, could be 
very much happier any where else than in England; but 
when my opponents treat this question of the franchise as one 
that is likely to bring the masses of the people down from 
their present state to the level of other countries, I say that 
I have travelled in most civilized countries, and that the 
masses of the people of this country do not compare as favor- 
ably with the masses of other countries as I could wish. I 
find in other countries a greater number of people with prop- 
erty than there are in England. I don't know a Protestant 
country in the world where the masses of the people are so 
illiterate as in England. These are not bad tests of the con- 
dition of a people. It is no use talking of your army and 
navy, your exports and your imports ; it is no use telling me 
you have a small portion of your people exceedingly well off. 
I want to bring the test to a comparison of the majority of 
the people with a majority of the people in other countries. 
Now, I say with regard to some things in foreign countries 
we don't compare favorably. The condition of the English 
peasantry has no parallel on the face of the earth. You have 
no other peasantry but that of England which is entirely 
divorced from the land. There is no other country in the 
world where you will not find men holding the plough and 
turning up the furrow upon their own freehold. I don't 
want any agrarian outrages by which we should change all 
this ; but this I find, and it is quite consistent with human 
nature, that wherever I go, the condition of the people is 
generally pretty good, in comparison with the power they 
have to take care of themselves ; and if you have a class en- 
tirely divorced from political powur, while in another country 



234 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

they possess it, they will be treated there with more consid- 
eration, they will have greater advantages, they will be bet- 
ter educated, and have a better chance of having property, 
than in a country where they are deprived of the advantage 
of political power. It is more than thirty years since our 
Reform Bill was passed, and we must remember that during 
that time great changes have taken place in other countries ; 
nearly all your colonies in that time have received represen- 
tative institutions; they are much freer in Australia, New 
Zealand and Canada ; much freer in their representative sys- 
tem than we are in England, and thirty years ago they were 
entirely under the tutelage of our Colonial Office. Go on the 
continent and you find there wide extensions of political 
franchise. Italy is more free, Austria, even, is stirring its 
dry bones ; you have all Germany now more or less invested 
with popular sovereignty, and I say that, with all our boasted 
maxims of superiority as a self-governing people, we don't 
maintain our relative rank in the world, for we are all obliged 
to acknowledge that we dare not interest a considerable part 
of the population of this country with political power, for fear 
they should make a revolutionary and dangerous use of it. 
Besides, bear in mind that both our political parties, both our 
aristocratic parties have already pledged themselves to an ex- 
tension of the franchise; the Queen has been made to recom- 
mend from her throne the extension of the franchise. You 
have placed the governing classes in this country in the 
wrong for all future time, if they do not fulfil those prom- 
ises and adopt those recommendations, and some day or 
other they will be obliged to yield to violence and cla- 
mor what I think you ought, in sound statesmanship, to 
do tranquilly and voluntarily, and in proper season. If 
you exclude to the present extent the masses of the people 
from the franchise, you are always running the risk of that 
which a very sagacious old Conservative statesman once 
spoke of in the House of Commons, when he said, "I am 
afraid we shall have an ugly rush, some day." Well, now, I 
want to avoid that " ugly rush." I would rather do the work 
tranquilly and do it gradually ; but all this will be done by 
people out of doors and not by Parliament, and it would be 
folly for you to expect in the House of Commons to take a 
single step in the direction of a reform, until a great desire 
and disposition are manifested for it out of doors. When 
that day comes, you will not want your champions in the 
House of Commons. — Richard Cobden, of jfihfgiand, 1863. 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 235 



THE WAR FOE FEEE LABOR IN AMERICA, 

You know that I have from the first never believed it pos- 
sible that the South would succeed, and I have not founded 
that faith upon moral instincts, which teach us to repudiate 
the very idea that anything so infernal should succeed- No ; 
it is because in this world the virtues and the forces go to- 
gether, and the vices and the weaknesses are inseparable. It 
was therefore I felt certain that this project never could suc- 
ceed, for how is it ? There is a community with nearly half 
of its population slaves, and they are attempting to fight an- 
other community where every working man is a free man. 
It is as though Yorkshire and Lancashire were to enter into 
conflict, and it was understood that in the case of one all the 
laborers who did the muscular work of the country, whether 
in the field or in the factory, whether on the roads or in the 
domestic establishments, should be not only eliminated from 
the fighting population, but ready to take advantage of the 
war either to run away or fight against their own country. 
.How could a community so circumstanced fight against a 
^lieighboring county where every laboring man was fighting 
for his own home ? What chance of success would it have, 
even if left to physical force, without speaking of the moral 
considerations to which I have referred ? That is the posi- 
tion of the two sections of the United States at the present 
moment. In the one case you have honor given to industry ; 
labor is held to be honorable. What are we told ? Have 
we not heard it used as a reproach by some people who fancy 
themselves in alliance with the aristocracy, some of our writ- 
ers, who would lead us to suppose that they are of the aris- 
tocratic order, that Mr. Lincoln was once a " rail splitter." 
Why was a rail splitter raised to be President of the United 
States ? Because labor is held in honor in that country. 
With, sucli a conflict going on, and with such a result as I 
feel no doubt will follow, I fear to speak of such a contest as 
that as a struggle for empire on one side, and for indepen- 
dence on the other. I say it is an aristrocratic rebellion 
against a democratic government. That is the title I would 
give to it, and in all history, when you have had the aristoc- 
racy pitted against the people in a physical contest, the aris- 
tocracy have always gone down under the heavy blows of 
the democracy. Let it not be said that I am indifferent to 
the process of misery and destitution, ruin and bloodshed 
now going on in America. No ; my indignation against 
the South is, that they fired the first shot, and made them- 



236 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

selves responsible for this war. I take probably a stronger 
view than most people in this country, and certainly a stronger 
view than anybody in America, of the vast sacrifices of life 
and of economical comfort and resources which must follow 
to the North from this struggle. They are mistaken if they 
think they can carry on a civil war like this, drawing a mil- 
lion men froni productive industry to be engaged merely in a 
process of destruction, and spending £200,000,000 or £300,000, 
0001 sterling without a terrible collapse, sooner or later, and 
a great prostration in every part of the community ; but that 
makes me still more indignant and intolerant of the cause, 
while of the result I have no more doubt than I have on any 
subject that lies in the future. 

Richard Oobden, of England, 1863. 



CONGRESSIONAL SINS OF OMISSION AND COMMISSION. 

Gold at 175, and Congress, with tax bills, tariff bills, bank 
bills, every financial measure, lifeless and shapeless, engaged 
in putting down freedom of debate in the national Capitol !* 
In the name of loyal people we protest. 

We tell these men at Washington that passion is making 
them mad. It is an absolute infatuation that has seized them. 
Their words strike upon the ears of the people like the gib- 
berish of Bedlam. Where have the senses of Congressmen 
gone that they don't realize the terrible burdens that rest 
upon the people, and the fearful clangers that confront the 
Government? Do they call themselves loyal men, and yet 
play these fantastic tricks? By their default, the prices of 
everything that sustains life are rapidly mounting. The cur- 
rency is gradually turning into worthless rags. Inch by inch, 
foot by foot, the Government moves on, straight before the 
eyes of its guardians, toward the bottomless pit of bank- 
ruptcy — yet distant, but, unless they act, inevitable. Not an 
arm do they yet raise to save it. 

It is astonishing, it is astounding, that the House, after this 
long and flagrant neglect of duty, should turn upon one of its 
members in this fierce fashion, for encouraging the enemy by 
words — by words which were made of air, and which, if they 
bad been let alone, would have straightway vanished into 
air. It is the wildness of the fireman who stands motionless 
while the flames are gathering headway, and falls foul of the 
man who declares that the fire will not be subdued. It is the 
inaction of these so-called loyal servants of the people that is 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 237 

aiding the rebellion ten thousand times more than the so- 
called disloyal speeches of the malcontents of the House. 

Not content with the fatal neglect of indispensable action, 
this body must superadd an equally fatal positive act. Un- 
satisfied with helping on the Southern rebels by depriving 
our Government of the sound credit which is its life, they 
must put into the hands of the Northern Copperheads a 
weapon of more deadly potency than they have ever yet 
handled or hoped for. How is it possible for true men so to 
misunderstand the American people, as to suppose they will 
submit quietly to this destruction of free debate in the council 
halls of the nation? What hellebore have they been drink- 
ing in Washington that has drugged their old perceptions ? 
Are we to be told that American liberty is of the bastard 
type these men would make it ? Has it, indeed, so degene- 
rated since it was transported from its native land ? Is our 
national Capitol so much below Parliament House, that men 
may only talk in it "by the card," and with bated breath ? 
For the last hundred years who has heard of a parliamentary 
expulsion in England for words spoken in debate ? If the 
House of Representatives expel Mr. Long, as attempted, it 
will prove- beyond all possibility of question or cavil that the 
freedom of debate, under our boasted republicanism, is not 
even what it was under the British monarchy, against the 
tyranny of which we revolted. Every American school-boy 
knows that the language used in Parliament against the Gov- 
ernment in favor of the American rebels, was a hundred 
times stronger than any that has been used in Congress 
against our Government in favor of the Southern rebels, and 
that it was used with perfect impunity in the very face of 
overwhelming Government majorities. Said Lord Chatham, 
in the House of Commons, in 1777, "If I were an American, 
as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in 
my country, I never would lay down my arms — never, never, 
never !" Has anything like that been heard in Congress from 
the sympathizers with our rebellion ? Said Fox, " There is 
not an American but must reject and resist the principle and 
the right." The worst that Mr. Long said falls far short of 
that. We are as sure as of the sun at mid-day that the peo- 
ple are not satisfied with either the past inaction, or the pres- 
ent action of their Representatives in Congress; that among 
great numbers of those most earnest in their loyalty, there is 
a discontent verging closely upon disgust. This discontent 
we do not deplore. It comes from the very highest and best 
qualities of the American nature. Were it absent, we should 
despair of the cause. A people that could be unmindful of 



238. THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

such neglect in their public servants as these Representatives 
have displayed during the four months they have been in ses- 
sion, at such a critical period for the Government, and that 
could be insensible to the violation of parliamentary freedom, 
the most sacred principle in every representative government, 
would be a people alike unworthy and unable to maintain a 
conflict like this for the salvation of human freedom. Thank 
heaven, it is not so. There is discontent — for the most part 
silent, as yet, but, for all that, profound and intense. The 
so-called servants of the people in the Capitol of the nation 
are the source of it, and the object of it. It behooves them 
to give it heed. — JSfeio York Times, 1864. 



THE DEMAND 



Mr. Speaker, the voice of the people of the United States 
cannot be mistaken. They demand of us, their Representa- 
tives, that the institution of human slavery, which has from 
the beginning been our national reproach, the fruitful source 
of sectional enmity and strife, the obstacle to the develop- 
ment of one-half of our territory, the secret enemy which has 
for seventy years sown our vineyard with tares and brambles, 
which has alienated brethren of the same blood, which has 
proscribed education, fomented discord, encouraged opposi- 
tion to our republican system, weakened the ties of national 
allegiance, and at last arrayed itself in bloody war against 
the Government, shall be forever blotted out ^n the Rebel 
States, and that upon its ruins shall be written a legend like 
that which indignant France wrote over the gateway of re- 
bellious Lyons, " Slavery made war upon the Republic; 
slavery is no more !" They demand this as the right of war 
against the public enemy. They demand it in the name of 
that very Constitution which is sought here to be made its 
shelter and its shield. They demand it as the only adequate 
compensation for the sacrifices which they have made and the 
sufferings which they have endured. They demand it in the 
name of liberty and of humanity. They demand it as the 
only pledge of future union and tranquillity. They demand 
it for their own peace and safety, and for the repose and 
security of their children. Already, its grim and terrible 
form, weakened by its wounds, begrimed with the dust of 
battle, and covered with the blood of brave men which has 
been shed in this sanguinary war, cowers and reels before 
the banners of the Republic. As it falls, let it hear ringing 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 239 

in its ears the decree for its extermination pronounced here 
by the Representatives of the people. 

Hon. JSL E. Thayer, May, 1864. 



HOW TO EESTOEE THE UNION, 

My heart's desire and prayer to God is for peace and union 
to this distracted land. While urging undiminished and in- 
creased exertions by our army and navy to secure union, I 
have been ever ready to heal the wounds and check the rav- 
ages of war by all rational methods used among civilized na- 
tions. To those who can entertain but one idea at a time, 
this position has seemed inconsistent ; but to those who have 
read history it will appear that to check strife and restore 
harmony in civil or international conflict, negotiation and 
friendliness are indispensable. 

There is one hope left. If the bayonet shall be unfixed at 
our polls, if no persuasive appliances of money shall attaint 
an honest election, I do not despair of a verdict in favor of 
that party whose principles I have loved for their national 
history and unsectional spirit. Fond as I am of historic re- 
search, I cannot follow my friend in mourning over the dust 
of departed empire. I read in the decline and fall of repub- 
lican governments lessons of wisdom and hope for our own 
guidance. In the remarks which I shall submit I propose to 
show from history how statesmanship has saved the falling 
columns of constitutional" liberty, how the victories of war 
have been crowned by the more renowned, important and 
difficult victories of peace, and how allegiance has been re- 
kindled by the sweet breath of kindness fanning the almost 
dying embers of patriotism. This may seem like a thankless 
and useless task, in view of the convulsions and prejudices 
of the hour ; but the issue to be presented next November 
demands such an exposition. That issue is, shall freedom, 
peace and union be restored by a change of rulers and policy, 
or shall we set aside the teachings of the past, and permit the 
work of disintegration and ruin to go on ? 

I propose to apply the lessons of history, by inquiring 
whether, even admitting all these plans of reconstruction to 
be legal, and even if decided to be so, some wiser, better and 
more practicable plan may not be adopted. Is there no am- 
nesty — no accommodation possible? There is. I believe 
that the restoration of the Union is possible, if we pursue a 
proper policy. The restoration of the Union as it was is only 



240 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

impossible to those who, for other objects, do not desire it, 
The reconciliation of all the States is possible — nay, probable 
— with the restoration of the doctrine of local selt-govern- 
ment and State sovereignty on matters not delegated to the 
Federal Government. I know no other hope. If this fail, 
all is dark and chaotic. Diversity of interests and systems 
find their unity alone in this system of laissez faire to the 
States. How then is it possible to restore local and State 
sovereignty, and thus unite our hapless and lacerated coun- 
try ? History never presented so grand a problem for states- 
manship. I approach it with something of that awe which 
solemnizes the soul when we enter within some vast and con- 
secrated fabric — vistas and aisles of thought opening on 
every side — pillars and niches, and cells within cells, mixing 
in seeming confusion, but all really in harmony and rich with 
a light streaming through the dim forms of the past, and 
blessed with an effluence from God, though dimmed and half 
lost in the contaminated reason and passion of man. Con- 
scious of the magnitude of this rebellion, and oppressed with 
the feebleness of the policy directed against it, I still believe 
in the restoration of the old Union. Hence, whatever method 
I should advocate for the conduct of the war, or the celebra- 
tion of peace, I am forever concluded against one conclusion, 
the independence of the South. I believe the principle of 
unity to be absolutely superior to the right of sectional 
nationality. The destiny of these United States is to 
continue united, and, perhaps, to add other States, until the 
whole continent is in alliance. Our fate is to expand, and not 
to contract our influence or our limits. All other notions 
are but transitory and evanescent. 

To restore allegiance and inspire nationality, let the indi- 
vidual rebel in arms against us be reached by the arms of 
our soldier, and, when a non-combatant, by the moderation 
and paternal care of the Government. Let the military pow- 
er of the Confederates be broken. Use those and only those 
severities of war which civilization warrants, and which will 
make the military power of the South feel the power of the 
nation ; but do not place any longer in their hands the arma- 
ment of despair. They have had that weapon for over two 
years. Let our rulers forego their ostracism of the misguided 
citizen. Let an amnesty be tendered which has hope in its 
voice. Give forgiveness to the erring, hope to the despond- 
ing, protection to the halting, and allay even fancied appre- 
hensions of evil by the measures of moderation. Thus, by 
confiscating confiscation, abolishing abolition, and cancelling 
proclamations, by respecting private property and State 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 241 

rights, prepare that friendliness which will beget confidence 
in the individual citizen. Thus will minorities be transferred 
to majorities South, and the States discarding the rebel au- 
thorities betake themselves to their normal and proper sphere 
under the old order. If this cannot be done by the present 
rulers, let other rulers be selected. History teaches in vain 
if it does not contain lessons of moderation in civil wars. 
How were the feuds of the Grecian federation accommo- 
dated ? How were the civil wars of Rome ended ? How 
were the intestine troubles of England assuaged ? How was 
La Vendee pacified by the generous Hocne? How is it 
ever that unity of empire and consentaneity of thought are 
induced? How, except by the practice of that mildness 
which cares for and does not curse the people ? 

Hon. 8. jS. Cox, 1864. 



THOROUGH WORK TEE BEST. 

~EsQi speaker that has risen on this platform to-night has 
declared his hatred of slavery. Why do you hate it? and, 
hating it, what will you do when you have abolished it ? 
Why do you hate it? Do you hate it because it has been 
the cause of discord and contention between you and your 
brethren at the South ? You do well to hate it for that rea- 
son. Do you hate it because it has often menaced the integ- 
rity of the States, and, at last, has rent those States in twain ? 
You do well to hate it for that reason. Do you hate it be- 
cause you believe that no solid peace, or future union, or any 
great and durable nationality can.ibe yours while slavery re- 
mains ? You do well to hate it for that reason. But do you 
not hate it for other reasons ? and when it shall be abolished, 
will you not prove that you hate it for other reasons? Will 
you not prove that you did not put it down simply to restore 
the Union ; that you did not put it down simply that there- 
after you might be a united, and prosperous, and strong, and 
great nation ? I trust that you mean to do more than to put 
down slavery; and I trust that you hate it not simply be- 
cause it has rent your Union asunder, and has filled your land 
with the harsh sounds of the alarms of war, but because, 
during your history as a nation, it has made merchandise of 
the bodies and the souls of men. Oh, what an evil has slavery 
been to this country ! Methinks that, if the fathers of your 
Revolution, the men who framed your Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and who established that Constitution which has 

11 



242 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

been the bond of your Union ever since its construction, 
could look down from heaven upon us to-night, and make 
their thoughts audible, and give you their counsel, they would 
counsel you to avoid in your future history the great error 
into which they fell. We have been told, to-night, of the 
crocodile that the Hindoos took to their bosom, and of the 
results which followed. Little did your fathers think, when 
they tolerated slavery, when they made provision for it in 
the Constitution, or when they granted to it by the Consti- 
tion certain privileges, and a certain protection, that in the 
life of a man such consequences would follow as those which 
we witness to-night. They thought it but a little thing to 
grant what they deemed would be a brief life to slavery. 
They thought it was no great harm to form a Union with 
States that held amongst them some five hundred thousand 
of human beings in chattel bondage. They said, " What is 
this compared with the establishment of this nation ? What 
is this compared with that glorious career which we shall 
pursue when we have become a united people?" And so 
they spared the life of slavery. They spared it in th^fcope 
and in the belief that it would die. And they gavSR six 
States to live in and to die in. And what followed ? The six 
States became fifteen ; and the five hundred thousand slaves 
became more than four millions ; and the two hundred thou- 
sand square miles of territory that then belonged to slavery 
became nearly eight hundred thousand square miles of terri- 
tory ; and the moneyed value of slaves in this country rose 
from two hundred millions of dollars to two thousand five 
hundred millions of dollars. And slavery lived — lived to 
grow ; lived to expand ; lived to become a governor of your 
country ; and lived to be old enough, and strong enough, and 
wicked enough, to aim at the overthrow of the glorious in- 
stitutions of this magnificent Republic. Now it is within 
your grasp. Now slavery totters to its fall. Already 
Avounded, maimed, dislocated, prostrate, and helpless,' it is at 
your feet. Put your heel upon its neck. Condemn it ut- 
terly. Then go on, my friends, to finish the good work, to 
lift the man who was enslaved into that liberty, that higher 
and better liberty, to which, I trust, his personal enfranchise- 
ment will be but the prelude. 

George, Thompson, of Mi gland, 1864. 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 243 



HEROES AND MAETYES. 

Heroes and martyrs ! they are the men of the hour. 
They are identified with the names that live upon the lips of 
millions. It is of these, more than all others, that the peo- 
ple talk, around their firesides and in their assemblies. It is 
of these that we may freely speak, even in the sanctuary. 
Out heroes and martyrs ! a cloud of witnesses for the spirit 
and worth of the nation. Our heroes ! named in the homes 
of all who have left home and occupation, comfort and 
kindred, and stood in the midst of the battle ; — presented to 
us in glorious clusters on many a deck and field. An entire 
di^ourse might be made up of instances. Our. memories 
run backward and forward through this war, collecting files 
of illustrious deeds. We remember the man who covered 
the threatened powder with his body — the gunner w 7 ho, ' 
bleeding to death, seized the lanyard, fired his cannon, and 
fell back dead — the gallant captain, w T ho, when his artillery- 
men were killed and himself left alone, sat calmly down upon 
his piece, and, with revolver in hand, refusing to fly, 
fought to the end, and died the last man at his gun — the old 
Massachusetts 2nd at Gettysburg, who, in the fierce fighting 
on the right, on the morning of the third of July, had their 
commanding officer killed at the head of the regiment, and 
five standard-bearers shot down in succession ; but the colors 
dropped by one were grasped by another, and never touched 
the ground. These are instances, hastily gathered from 
glorious sheaves — not exceptional, but representative in- 
stances. These are the men of the hour, who illustrate the 
value of our country by the richest crop that has ever sprung 
from her soil. 

But where the hero stands, there also the martyr dies. 
With the chorus of victory blends the dirge — mournful and 
yet majestic, too. The burden of that dirge, as it falls from 
the lips of wives and mothers, of fathers and children, is 
sad and tender like the strain of David w T eeping for those 
who fell upon Gilboa. That burden is still mournful but as 
passes on and it reissues from a nation's lips, it swells also into 
exultation and honor — that same burden — " How are the 
mighty fallen in the midst of the battle !" 

Some of us perhaps have read of that company whom 
their brave officer had so often conducted to victory, and 
who would never part with their dead hero's name. Still 
day by day, at the head of the regimental roll, it is called 



244 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

aloud ; the generation that loved him have passed away ; 
but their sons and their sons' sons, will ever and always 
love the honored name. 'Cornet Latour DjAuvergne ' still 
first of the brave band, is summoned ; and ever and always 
a brave soldier steps from the ranks to reply : " Dead on 
the field of honor !' " 

"Dead on the field of honor !" This, too, is the record 6 
of thousands of unnamed men, whose influence upon other 
generations is associated with no personal distinction, but 
whose sacrifice will lend undying lustre to the nation's 
archives and richer capacity to the nation's life. And yet 
these martyrs are remembered by name. Go visit the 
mourning homes of the land ; homes of wealth and plenty, 
some of them, but richer now by the consecration of sacri- 
fice. Many are homes of toil and obscurity, from which^ie 
right hand of support has been taken, or the youthful prop. 
Poor and obscure ; — but these the unknown fallen have 
names, and riches of solemn, tender memory. And what 
heralding on palatial wall more glorious than the torn cap 
and soiled uniforms that hang in those homes where the dead 
soldier comes no more ? What aristocratic legend refers to 
a prouder fact than that which shall often be recited in the 
still summer field where he labored, and by the winter fire- 
side where his place is vacant : — " He fell in the great war for 
Union and for Freedom !" 

Sleep, sleep, in quiet grassy graves, where the symbols 
that ye loved so well shall cover and spread over you — by 
day the flowers of red, white and blue, and by night the 
constellated stars — while out of those graves there grows 
the better harvest of the nation and of times to come ! 

Rev. M H. Chapiriy 1864. 



THE DEESS EEPOEM. 

Our question is one of ways and means : — not whether 
we shall do this or that, but how wisely and effectively it 
shall be undertaken and accomplished. It is a question of 
helping the Cause by a self-denial so paltry that I will not 
insult any American woman by calling it a sacrifice. Women 
of America ! there is a heavy and increasing balance against 
us on the score of importations. This nation is exporting 
millions in specie to pay for the costly luxuries of the Old 
World. The question is, will you destroy, will you extin- 
guish this balance against us ? Will you stop this drain on 



SPEECHES OF THE TIMES. 245 

the muscles of the nation ? It can be done with perfect 
ease. Every one must see that at least seventy-five millions 
must be taken off our expenses, and not a particle of com- 
fort less would be enjoyed by any woman on the continent. 
The thing can be done if it; be only made fashionable to do it. 
We ask for no linsey woolsey dress ; but we ask every woman 
in her loyalty, in her simpleness, in her shrewdness, in her 
common sense, to reduce her own personal expenses in dress 
and jewels, to do everything she fairly and easily can do to 
reduce our gold account. And this without making it tell 
on her substantial comforts, upon the health or happiness of 
herself or family. The thing is perfectly feasible and within 
our reach. Now will it be done ? Of course this work must 
have its beginning. Certain ladies here who can afford to 
spend money, pledge themselves that they will not encourage 
the importation of foreign luxuries. They will, as far as 
convenient, abstaiu from the purchase of those imported 
luxuries ; and if their example be copied, this fashion, set in 
the streets of New York, will be imitated all over the 
country, and those sixty millions now against us will be an- 
hilated within six months. It is perfectly easy to do it ; and 
what will be the effect of this ? Go into Wall street — into 
the gold ring — after the matter is fairly inaugurated, or, if 
you think this too perilous a venture, open one of the morn- 
ing papers next day and you will see the result — gold tum- 
bling down with the crash, and the credit of the country going 
up. Now, we want good Uncle Sam to be able to hold up 
his head in Wall street and Lombard street, and everywhere 
else, in the strength of his credit," so that his greenbacks will 
be as good as gold, dollar for dollar. What woman that de- 
serves the name is willing to sweep the streets with Lyons 
silk and costly velvet, and go flashing up and down Broad- 
way with expensive jewels, when these streets echo so often to 
the funeral tread, and when so many faces we meet are sad- 
dened with the grief of the hour. It is indecent, it is unbe- 
fitting, it is unsympathetic — it is a shame. I do not ask for 
crape in any form when the hand of God himself has not 
smitten with ills ; I do not ask for sackcloth and ashes or 
these outward signs and circumstances of *sorrow ; but I ask 
a decent, sober and a blameless demeanor, which becomes 
people who feel that they are walking amid the shadows of 
great events. I honestly believe that there never has been 
in history a more faithful, a more heroic, a more godly army 
than the Army of the Potomac, not to say all the armies of 
the Union. And I know no keener grief, no more acute sor- 
row, no deeper sense of shame, visiting those men than the 



246 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

knowledge of the extravagant and frightful vanity which is 
flourishing behind them. They look from their tents, back 
from the weary march, at all our flaunting pride, and they 
weep in shame for us. They do not curse us, but they weep 
for us in shame, and exclaim, " Cannot you be sober, in 
God's name, looking on to see us die ?" This is the ques- 
tion. I will add no more. It lies with the American wo- 
men most materially to assist the credit of the country in the 
exigency now upon it, and which is to be a protracted exi- 
gency. And, above all, it is in their power to cheer the 
army by the spirit they shall exhibit, so that they, as the 
bugles sound from the Rapidan to Spottsylvania, from Spott- 
sylvania to Gordonsville, from Gordonsville to Richmond — ■ 
from Richmond to annihilation-^ so that when the bugles 
sound from march to jnarch, from battle to battle, your 
brave boys may say the nation — the nation — is behind us. 
I JRoswell D. Hitchcock, 1864. 



EULOGY ON OWEN LOVEJOT. 

I know not, my friends, what form this project to erect a 
monument to the memory of Owen Lovejoy may take, in 
what material it may be wrought, or how its design may be 
fashioned. But let me express the hope that the contribu- 
tions will be large enough and liberal enough to allow you to 
erect in this beautiful neighborhood — where Owen Lovejoy 
settled long ago, and where he labored so long and so 
effectually to form and purify public opinion — a suitable 
monument in ever-during bronze, a material so indestruct- 
ible that an image formed by Tubal Cain himself, the 
world's earliest artificer in brass and iron, might have lasted 
midecayed to the present time. In this durable material I 
would hope that sculpture might exert the utmost efforts in 
representing his features and impressing upon them their 
grand expression of high resolution, undaunted courage, and 
unflinching perseverance. And then, my friends, an inhabi- 
tant of Princeton^ standing near it, and pointing it out to a 
stranger, might say to him, " That monument was erected 
to the memory of one who was a champion of the cause of 
universal liberty in that time past when the cause of univer- 
sal liberty was feeble, and despised. Behold how the hand 
that framed him stamped upon his manly brow the seal of a 
vigorous mind, an undaunted heart, and unshaken constancy. 
He saw his brother, a nrevious champion in that noble cause, 



SPEECHES OP THE TIMES. 247 

struck down and murdered before his eyes, and at that very 
moment, on that very spot, he devoted himself to the cause 
of universal freedom ; to that cause he gave the labors of his 
life, to that the labors of his life were devoted, and to it his 
life was at last sacrificed. He knew that he should encoun- 
ter scorn, obloquy, opposition. He feared them not. He 
met them ; he defied them ; he overcame them. He outlived 
the scorn ; he lived down the obloquy ; he fought down the 
opposition. He saw the great cause in which he wa^s engaged 
on the eve of a glorious triumph. Before he died he saw it 
— not as Moses saw the promised land, at a distance — he 
saw it at his very feet. He saw it as Joshua saw the land of 
Palestine when he crossed the river Jordan, from the thirsty 
regions of Moab, and planted his steps on a soil fresh with 
the dews and rlow r ersof heaven." 

Then if the person whom I imagine to speak were in the 
habit of drawing broad conclusions from particular instances, 
and deducing solemn and sublime moralities from the prac- 
tical aspect of things, he might go on to say : 

"Let no man who looks at this monument ever be dis- 
couraged in a good cause. Let him first satisfy his conscience 
as to the merits of his cause, its truth, its righteousness, its 
humanity. Let him satisfy himself that he is in the line of 
his duty, and then let him enter upon it fearlessly with a 
heart assured that he is approved of his God, that his labor 
will be crowned with success, that his cause will finally tri- 
umph. For evil is temporary ; evil is mortal ; it is doomed 
by a necessity of its nature to yield to dissolution. But 
good is permanent,- deathless, eternal, destined to prevail 
over all oppression, and sure of a glorious triumph ; for God 
is with it." 

There is a portion of the liturgy of the Episcopal church 
which has always seemed to me exceedingly beautiful and 
affecting. It is that in which the worshippers give thanks to 
Almighty God for the lives of those who have labored or 
suffered for the truth, and have passed away, leaving worthy 
and shining examples of self-sacrifice and of goodness for 
the imitation of mankind. A monument like the one of 
which I have spoken erected in the neighborhood, in some 
conspicuous place, would be a standing, visible, perpetual 
acknowledgment of public gratitude to the Author of all 
Good that such a man as Owen Lovejoy lived, that such a 
citizen was given to this country. 

William Cullen Bryant, 1864. 



II. 

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 



SPEECH OF MAECELLUS TO THE EOMAN MOB. 

Wherefore rejoice ? That Caesar comes in triumph ? 
What conquests brings he home ? what tributaries follow 
him to Rome, to grace, in captive bonds, his chariot wheels ? 
You blocks ! you stones ! you worse than senseless things ! 
O you hard hearts ! you cruel men of Rome ! Knew you 
not Pompey ? Many a time and oft have you climbed up to 
walls and battlements, to towers and windows, yea, to chim- 
ney-tops, your infants in your arms ; and there have sat the 
livelong day, with patient expectation, to see great Pompey 
pass the streets of Rome. And when you saw his chariot 
but appear have you not made a universal shout, that Tiber 
trembled underneath her banks, to hear the replication of 
your sounds made in her concave shores ? And do you now 
put on your best attire ? and do you now cull out a holiday ? 
And do you now strew flowers in his way that comes in 
triumph over Pompey's blood ? Begone ! Run to your 
houses, fall upon your knees, pray to the gods to intermit the 
plagues that needs must light on this ingratitude. 

Shakespeare. 



THE CUESE OF EEGULUS. 

The palaces and domes of Carthage were burning with 
the splendors of noon, and the blue waves of her harbor 
were rolling and gleaming in the gorgeous sunlight. An 
attentive ear could catch a low murmur, sounding from the 
centre of the city, which seemed like the moaning of the 
wind before a tempest. And well it might. The whole 
people of Carthage, startled, astounded by the report that 
Regulus had returned, were pouring, a mighty tide, into the 
great square before the Senate House. There were mothers 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTEACTS. 249 

in that throng, whose captive sons were groaning in Roman 
fetters ; maidens, whose lovers were dying in the distant 
dungeons of Rome ; gray-haired men and matrons, whom 
Roman steel had made childless ; men, who were seeing their 
country's life crushed out -by Roman power; and with wild 
voices, cursing and groaning, the vast throng gave vent to 
the rage, the hate, the anguish of long years. 

Calm and unmoved as the marble walls around him, stood 
Regulus, the Roman ! He stretched his arm over the surg- 
ing crowd with a gesture as proudly imperious, as though he 
stood at the head of his own gleaming cohorts. Before that 
silent command the tumult ceased — the half-uttered execra- 
tion died upon the lip — so intense was the silence that the 
clank of the captive's brazen manacles smote sharp on every 
ear, as he thus addressed them : 

" Ye doubtless thought, judging of Roman virtue by your 
own, that I would break my plighted faith, rather than by 
returning, and leaving your sons and brothers to rot in 
Roman dungeons, to meet your vengeance. Well, I could 
give reasons for this return, foolish and inexplicable as it 
seems to you ; I could speak of yearnings after immortality — 
of those eternal principles in whose pure light a patriot's 
death is glorious, a thing to be desired ; but by great Jove ! 
I should debase myself to dwell on such high themes to you. 
If the bright blood Avhich feeds my heart were, like the 
slimy ooze that stagnates in your veins, I should have re- 
mained at Rome, saved my life and broken my oath. If, 
then, you ask, why I have come back, to let you work your 
will on this poor body which I esteem but as the rags that 
cover it, — enough reply for you, it is because I am a Ro- 
man! As such, here in your very capital I defy you! 
What I have done, ye never can undo y what ye may do, I 
care not. Since first my young arm knew how to wield a 
Roman sword, have I not routed your armies, burned your 
towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels? 
And do ye now expect to see me cower and whine with 
dread of Carthaginian vengeance ? Compared to that fierce 
mental strife which my heart has just passed through at 
Rome, the piercing of this flesh, the rending of these sinews, 
would be but sport to me. 

"Venerable senators, with trembling voices and outstretched 
hands, besought me to return no more to Carthage. The 
generous people, with loud wailing, and wildly-tossing ges- 
tures, bade me stay. The voice of a beloved mother,— her 
withered hands beating her breast, her gray hairs streaming 
in the wind, tears flowing down her furrowed cheeks — 

11* 



250 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

praying me not to leave her in her lonely and helpless old 
age, is still sounding in my ears. Compared to anguish like 
this, the paltry torments you have in store is as the murmur 
of the meadow brook to the wild tumult of the mountain 
storm. Go ! bring your threatened tortures ! The woes I 
see impending over this fated city will be enough to sweeten 
death, though every nerve should tingle with its agony. I 
die — but mine shall be the triumph ; yours the untold deso- 
lation. For every drop of blood that falls from my veins, 
your OAvn shall pour in torrents ! Wo, unto thee, O Car- 
thage ! I see thy homes and temples all in flames, thy citi- 
zens in terror, thy women wailing for the dead. Proud 
city ! thou art doomed ! the curse of Jove, a living, lasting 
curse is on thee ! The hungry waves shall lick the golden 
gates of thy rich palaces, and every brook run crimson to the 
sea. Rome, with bloody hand, shall sweep thy heart-strings, 
and all thy homes shall howl in wild response of anguish to 
her touch. Proud mistress of the sea, disrobed, uncrowned 
and scourged — thus again do I devote thee to the infernal 
gods! 

Now, bring forth your tortures ! Slaves ! while ye tear 
this quivering flesh, remember how often Pegulus has beaten 
your armies and humbled your pride. Cut as he would have 
carved you ! Burn deep as his curse ! 



METAMOEA TO HIS WARRIOES. 

Sachems, chiefs, and warriors ! Metamora has told his 
brothers of the many aggressions and insults of the pale-faces, 
and the outrage upon his family. Metamora cannot lie. He 
has told his brothers that the heart of the pale-face is like his 
skin, white and without blood, — that good sap of the tree, 
that makes its branches spread afar, and give shelter and 
fruit to all. Metamora Cannot lie. He has told his brothers 
that the Great Spirit, who provides for all his creatures, 
made a land for the white man as well as for his red chil- 
dren. That land made by the Good Spirit must be good; 
and if these pale-faces were good in their hearts, they would 
live in their own land that their Father gave them. If they 
are not good, the red man should treat them as the panther, 
that comes to his wigwam to steal the deer that he has 
hunted, or the bird that he has shot with his arrow. Meta- 
mora cannot lie. When a red man makes a visit of peace to 
a brother's wigwam, he feeds at his fire, drinks of his bowl, 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 251 

smokes of the prophet-plant, and departs in peace. We re- 
ceived the white man as we receive a brother ; he fed at our 
fire, smoked of the friendly pipe, and danced with our 
squaws ; but he never departs. He still stays, eats of our 
meat, warms by our fires, craves more and more' from us, 
measures the very ground that we loaned him to sport on, 
and claims it as his own. Was he not afraid to track even 
the deer of the hills, or the bear of the forest, for a meal ? 
Did not the red man hunt the buffalo, the buck, the otter, 
and slay them to feed and keep him warm ? And when the 
Great Spirit, angry at their stay, talked louder than the roar 
of their mighty rifles, and shook their big canoes in his wrath, 
did we not dive into the mad waters around them, and' save 
them from going down to the water-spirit in their splintered 
barks ? Did not the red men dry them by their fires, give 
them the soft fur of the otter to lie on, and shelter and pro- 
tect them, till our prophets soothed the Great Spirit's anger, 
and he talked no more in thunder? And now they stay 
long, and want more — more — more. Like the wolf-dog, feed 
him, and he'll come again ; give him our beds, and he bites 
us ; fatten him, and he'll drive us from our wigwam. They 
show us books, which they say will tell us of the Great 
Spirit, We know the Great Spirit without books. He 
whispers to us in the breeze ; he sings to us in the wind-cloud 
and the waterfall ; he talks to us in thunder, and our hearts 
answer ; we see his frown in the storm-cloud, his smile in the 
warm face of the eternal sun ; the great blue tent above is 
his wigwam, and the stars are his watch-fires ! The red men 
need no books to tell them this, for this is all truth. Yv r hite 
men make books, and white men lie ! They take from us, 
while they tell us that they come to give ; but the red man 
wants no gifts, save the gifts of Him who owns all, and who 
can give without taking from another. When the red man 
makes war upon his brother, he comes to him as his foe, and 
shows the tomahawk, the bow and arrow, and the plume of 
the eagle; but these pale-faces come with peace upon their 
lips, with their hands empty, but wear the little rifle and the 
knife, like a snake hid within their bosoms, to plunge into 
the heart of the red man. In this do they not lie ? They 
are as false as the snow-bank in the spring ; if we rest upon 
it it sinks with us. The white man talks of peace; but 
Metamora tells his brothers that their big canoes are still 
landing from over the salt lake, filled with rifles, thunder- 
guns, and their long knives of war. Metamora cannot lie. 
When we ask the white man what allthese are for, he tells 
us they are for hunting, and destroying the wolf, the panther, 



252 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

and the crocodile ; but Metamora again tells his brothers 'tis 
a lie! They are to drive the red man from his lands, shoot 
him down like the deer herd, and fire his wigwam with their 
thunder-guns. Then let the red man rouse and scream like 
the eagle when the snake seeks his nest, — join with his tribe, 
and dart upon his foe, — protect the lands of his fathers, the 
gift of the Great Spirit ; let the keen axe of vengeance defend 
their wives and the doves of their wigwams from the fire-hail 
of the white skin. Bury not the hatchet, nor sling the 
rifle, while the track of the high moccasin insults the graves 
of our fathers ! 

White man, beware ! Th,e wrath of the wronged Indian 
shall come upon you like the roaring cataract that dashes the 
uprooted oak down into the mighty chasm ; the war-whoop 
shall rouse you from your dreams at night, and the red 
tomahawk glare in the blaze of your burning dwellings ! 
Tremble! from the east to the west, in the north and in the 
south, shall be heard the loud cry of vengeance, till the lands 
you have stolen groan under your feet no more. 

Snakes of the pale-face, ye may slay the chief of the Warn- 
panoags, but the soul of Metamora shall still live, and talk in 
the red sons of Manito. His blood shall be their war-paint 
of vengeance. They shall kill man for man and race for race. 
From the king of hills to the mighty vales and caverns, they 
shall betray you as you have the wronged red man, till your 
hot fire-water blood shall burn in millions of fires and light 
their dance of freedom. 



DESPAIE 



A man overboard ! What matters it ! the ship does not 
stop. The* wind is blowing, that dark ship must keep on 
her destined course. She passes away. 

The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges and rises 
again to the surface, he calls, he stretches out his hands, they 
hear him not; the ship, staggering under the gale, is strain- 
ing every rope ;" the sailors and the passengers see the drown- 
ing man no longer ; his miserable head is but a point in the 
vastness of the billows. . He hurls cries of despair into the 
depths. What a spectacle is that disappearing sail ! He 
looks upon it, he looks upon it with frenzy. It moves away ; 
it grows dim; it diminishes. He was there but just now; 
he was one of the crew, he went and came upon the deck 
with the rest, he had his share of the air and of the sunlight, 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 253 

he was a living man. Now, what has become of him ? He 
slipped, he fell — and it is finished. 

He is in the monstrous deep. He has nothing under his 
feet but the yielding, fleeing element. The waves, torn and 
scattered by the wind, close round him hideously; the roll- 
ing of the abyss bears him along ; shreds of water are flying 
about his head ; a populace of waves spit upon him ; confused 
openings half swallow him ; when he sinks he catches glimpses 
of yawning precipices full of darkness ; fearful unknown vege- 
tations seize upon him, bind his feet, and draw him to them- 
selves ; he feels that he is becoming the great deep ; he makes 
part of the foam ; the billows toss him from one to the other ; 
he tastes the bitterness ; the greedy ocean is eager to devour 
him ; the monster plays with his agony. It seems as if all 
this were liquid hate. 

He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he 
struggles, he swims. He — that poor strength that fails so 
soon — he combats the unfailing. 

Where now is the ship ? Far away yonder. Hardly visi- 
ble in the pallid gloom of the horizon. The wind blows in 
gusts ; the billows overwhelm him. He raises his eyes, but 
sees only the livid clouds. He, in his dying agony, makes 
part of this immense insanity of the sea. He is tortured to 
death by its immeasurable madness. He hears sounds which 
are strange to man, sounds which seem to come, not from the 
earth, but from some frightful realm beyond. There are birds 
in the clouds, even as there are angels above human distresses, 
but what can they do for him. They fly, sing and float, while 
he is gasping. He feels that he is buried at once by those 
two infinities, the ocean and the sky ; the one is a tomb, the 
other a pall. 

Night descends ; he has been swimming f^r hours, his 
strength is almost exhausted ; that ship, that far-off thing 
where there were men, is gone ; he is alone in the terrible 
gloom of the abyss ; he sinks, he strains, he struggles, he 
feels beneath him the shadowy monsters of the unseen ; he 
shouts. Men are no more. Where is God ? He shouts. 
Help ! help ! he shouts incessantly. Nothing in the horizon, 
nothing in the sky. He implores the blue vault, the waves, 
the rocks ; all are deaf. He supplicates the tempest : the 
imperturbable tempest obeys only the Infinite. 

Around him are darkness, storm, solitude, wild and uncon- 
scious tumult, the ceaseless tumbling of the fierce waters ; 
within him, horror and exhaustion ; beneath him, the engulf- 
ing abyss. No resting-place. He thinks of the shadowy ad- 
ventures of his lifeless body in the limitless gloom. The bit- 



254 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

ing cold paralyzes Mm. His hands clutch spasmodically, and 
grasp at nothing. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, blasts, stars — 
all useless ! What shall he do? He yields to despair ; worn 
out, he seeks death ; he no longer resists ; he gives himself 
up ; he abandons the contest, and he is rolled away into the 
dismal depths of the abyss forever. — Victor Hugo, 1862. 



HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. 

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star in his steep 
course ? — so long he seems to pause on thy bald, awful head, 
O, sovereign Blanc ! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base 
rave ceaselessly : but thou, most awful form ! risest from forth 
the silent sea of pines, how silently ! Around thee and above, 
deep as the air and dark, substantial black, an ebon mass : 
methinks thou piercest it as with a wedge ! But when I look 
again, it is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, thy hab- 
itation from eternity ! — O dread and silent mount ! I gazed 
upon thee till thou, still present to the bodily sense, didst van- 
ish from my thought : entranced in prayer, I worshipped the 
Invisible alone. 

Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody, so sweet we know 
not we are listening to it, thou, the meanwhile, wast blending 
with my thought, yea, with my life and life's own secret joy, 
till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused into the mighty vis- 
ion passing — there, as in her natural form, swelled vast to 
heaven. 

Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise thou owest ! not 
alone these swelling tears, mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! 
Awake, voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! 
green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn! 

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale ! O, strug- 
gling with the darkness all the night, and visited all night by 
troops of stars, or when they climb the sky, or when they 
sink ! Companion of the morning star at dawn, thyself come 
down to earth and utter praise ! Who sank thy sunless pil- 
lars deep in earth ? Who filled thy countenance with rosy 
light ? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 

And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad! who called 
you forth from night and utter death ; from dark and icy cav- 
erns called you forth, down those precipitous, black, jagged 
rocks, forever shattered, and the same for ever ? Who gave 
you your invulnerable life, your strength, your speed, your 
fury, and your joy ; unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 255 

And who commanded, (and the silence came,) " Here let the 
billows stiffen and have rest?" 

Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow adown enor- 
mous ravines slope amain — torrents, methinks, that heard a 
mio-hty voice and stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! 
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! — who made you glori- 
ous as the gates of heaven, beneath the keen, fall moon ? 
"Who bade the sun clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with 
living flowers of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? 
God ! Let the torrents like a shout of nations, answer ! and 
let the ice-plains echo — God ! God ! Sing, ye meadow- 
streams, with gladsome voice ! ye pine groves, with your 
soft and soul-like sounds ! And they, too, have a voice, yon 
piles of suow, and in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! 

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! Ye wild 
goats, sporting round the eagle's nest ! Ye eagles, playmates 
of the mountain storm ! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of 
the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the element ! Utter 
forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! 

Once more, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, oft 
from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, shoots downward, 
glittering through the pure serene in the depth of clouds that 
veil thy breast, thou, too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou 
that, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low in adoration, up- 
ward from thy base slow travelling, with dim eyes suffused 
with tears, solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud, to rise before 
me, — rise, O, ever rise ! rise like a cloud of incense from the 
earth ! Thou kingly spirit thrown among the hills, thou 
dread ambassador from earth to heaven ; great hierarch ! 
tell thou the silent sky, and tell the stars and tell yon rising 
sun, earth, with her thousand voices, praises God ! 

& T. Coleridge. 



EULOGY ON JEAN PAUL. 

A stae has gone down, and the eye of this century will 
be closed before it again arises ; for blazing genius moyes in 
far orbits, and only the children's children may greet again 
with gladness that to which the fathers bade farewell with 
tears. And a crown is fallen from the head of a king, and a 
sword is broken in the hand of a leader, and a high priest is 
dead ! Well may we weep for him who was compensation 
for our losses, and for whose loss there is no compensation ! 

To every land is given, for its doleful deprivations, some 
kindly recompense. The north, without a heart, has its iron 



256 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

strength ; the effeminate south its golden sun ; gloomy Spain 
its faith ; the needy French are refreshed with a prodigal 
wit; and freedom lights up the misty air of England. We 
had Jean Paul, and we have him no more; and in him we 
lost what in him only we possessed — strength and gentleness 
and fait!) and cheerful mirth and unfettered speech. This is 
the star gone down — the heavenly faith that shone for us in 
him whose light is now extinguished. This is the crown 
downfallen — the crown of love that ruled him who wore it, 
as likewise all who were his subjects. This is the broken 
sword — satire in a bold hand, before which kings tremble 
and bloodless courtiers blush. And this is the high priest, 
who prayed for us in the temple of nature ; he is gone, and 
our devotion has no longer an interpreter ! We will mourn 
for him whom we have lost, and for those others who did not 
lose him. Not for all has he lived ! But there will cornea time 
when lie shall be born for all, and all will weep for him. And 
he stands patiently at the gate of the twentieth century, and 
waits with a smile, until his creeping nation shall come after 
him. 

Centuries march by ; the seasons roll away ; changeful is 
the weather of fortune; the gradations of age ascend and 
descend. Nothing is perpetual but change, nothing constant 
but death. Every heart-beat strikes us with a wound ; and 
life would be an endless bleeding, were it not for poetry. 
She grants us what nature denies — a golden age that does 
not corrode, a spring that does not fade, cloudless fortune 
and eternal youth. The poet is the consoler of humanity, if 
only Heaven itself has authorized him, if God has pressed 
his seal upon his forehead, if he brings not the celestial mes- 
sage for the vulgar reward of a carrier. Such was Jean 
Paul. He sang not in the palaces of the great; he made no 
sport with his lyre at the tables of the rich. He was the 
poet of the /lowly-born ; he was the minstrel of the poor ; 
and where the sorrowful wept were heard the sweet tones of 
his harp. He Avas no flatterer of the crowd, no servant of 
custom. Through narrow, hidden paths he sought out the 
neglected village. He counted, in the nation, the men ; in 
towns, the roofs ; and, under each roof, every heart. All the 
seasons blossomed for him; for him they all bore' fruit. For 
the freedom of thought he struggled with others ; in the bat- 
tle for the freedom of feeling he stands alone. 

Such was Jean Paul ! Do you ask where he was born, 
where he lived, where his ashes rest ? He came from Hea- 
ven, he lived on the earth, our heart is his grave. No hero, 
no poet has drawn so true a picture of his life in his works 






MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. * 25 7 

as Jean Paul. The spirit is departed, the words only are left. 
He has gone hence; and in whatever heaven he wanders, in 
whatever star he dwells, he will not forget in his transfigura- 
tion the earth he knew so well, nor his own fellow-men, who 
played and wept with him, and like him loved and endured. 
From the German of Imdwig Boerne, 1825. 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 

If I were to speak of that single characteristic of Zachary 
Taylor which has always impressed my own mind with most 
force, I should say that he realized more perfectly than any 
other person the pure ideal of a republican citizen. Equal 
to the highest, not seeming superior to the humblest, accessi- 
ble alike to all, modest, resolved, courteous, firm, benevolent, 
just, loyal to his government, " true to himself," and there- 
fore "false to no man" — of what other great character of our 
time can all this be said so truly? 

But, fellow-citizens, while I thus speak of this event as an 
irreparable loss — even as a great public calamity — I do not 
partake the fears of those who view in it a reason for agita- 
tion and alarm — who draw from it fatal auguries to the safety 
of the Republic. I do not believe that Divine Providence 
has chosen to suspend the fate of this people upon the life of 
any one man. God's purposes in respect to this nation of 
ours are not to be thus accomplished. It was not for a des- 
tiny which we have yet fulfilled that for four thousand years 
he kept this half of the globe concealed behind the curtain 
which shut down upon the western horizon of the Old 
World. It was not for this early fruit which we have yet 
gathered that he then planted it with that " winnowed seed." 
Not for this short national life did he teach us how to frame 
this organized living body politic, vital in every part. Surely, 
surely, this new career of the world's progress, so full of ra- 
diant promise, is not to be suddenly arrested ! 

How admirably indeed has this mournful event itself illus- 
trated the strength and beauty of our political system ! How 
fully is its whole philosophy vindicated by one simple almost 
unnoticed event. A gentleman from a Southern State has 
arisen to address the Senate of the United States upon an 
agitating question of internal policy. While he is speaking, 
a Senator from Massachusetts arises, and, in a voice weak 
with emotion, announces that the executive head of the Re- 
public is rapidly drawing near the end of life. The speech 



258 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

is suspended, and the Senate adjourns. In six days it again 
assembles. In that short interval the executive government 
of the country has been silently but totally changed. The 
sceptre of power has fallen from the hand of one man 
touched with the finger of death — and has been instantly 
taken up and borne without challenge by another. Changes 
have taken place which would have convulsed some of the 
self-styled strong governments of the Old World to their 
centres, and behold ! the Senate calmly resumes the order of 
its business — and the Senator arises to proceed with the un- 
finished speech ! 

But, my friends, though we do not yield to melancholy 
forebodings for ourselves, we do not the less cherish the pre- 
cious memory of the departed. Fellow-citizens, it is not 
often we are called to mourn for such a loss. Soldiers, 
statesmen, orators, scholars, daily pass away from amongst 
us, and others daily arise to fill their places. But when a 
great heart — upon which a nation, in its hour of peril, has 
rested the burthen of its hopes and fears— ceases to beat, it 
is a time to pause in awe and sorrow. 

Ah ! my countrymen, this recent grave has indeed opened 
at the feet of truth, and honor, of private worth and public 
station, of highest power united to purest virtue — " the cord 
that is loosed was indeed of silver, the bowl that is broken 
was of gold beyond all price !" 

Hon. James Humphrey \ 1860. 



THE GRAVE 



Oh, the grave ! the grave ! It buries every error ; covers 
every defect; extinguishes every resentment. From its 
peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recol- 
lections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, 
and not feel a compunctious throb, that ever he should have 
warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering 
before him ? But the grave of those he loved, what a place 
for meditation! Then it is we call up, in long review, the 
whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand en- 
dearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded, in the daily 
intercourse of intimacy ; then it is, we dwell upon the ten- 
derness, the solemn and awful tenderness of the parting 
scene; the bed of death, with all the stifled grief; its noise- 
less attendants, its mute, watchful assiduities; the last testi- 
monies of expiring love; the feeble, fluttering, thrilling — 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 259 

Oh! how thrilling the pressure of the hand; the last, fond 
look of the glazed eye, turning upon us, even from the 
threshold of existence ; the feint, faltering accents struggling 
in death to give one more assurance of affection ! Aye, go 
to the grave of buried love and meditate ! There settle the 
account with thy conscience, for every past endearment, un- 
regarded, of that departed being, who never, never, never 
can return, to be soothed by contrition ! 

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the 
soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate 
parent ; if thou art a husband, and hast ever "caused the fond 
bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to 
doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou 
art a friend, and hast ever wronged in thought, or word, or 
deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art 
a lover and hast ever given an unmerited pang to the true 
heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet ; then be 
sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every 
ungenteel action, will come thronging back upon thy memo- 
ry, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure thou 
wilt be down, sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and 
utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more 
deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. 

Washington Irving. 



THE SEVEN AGES 



All the world's a stage, and all the men and women 
merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; 
and one man in his time, plays many parts ; his acts being 
— Seven Ages. At first, the Infant, mewling and puking in 
the nurse's arms. And then the whining School-boy with his 
satchel and shining morning face; creeping like a snail un- 
willingly to school. And- then the Lover, sighing like fur- 
nace, with a woful ballad made to his mistress's eye-brow. 
Then a Soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the 
pard ; jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel; seeking 
the bubble, reputation, even in the cannon's mouth. And 
then, the Justice, in fair round belly with good capon lined, 
with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of w T ise saws 
and modern instances ; and so he plays his part. The sixth 
age shifts into the lean and slippered Pantaloon, with specta- 
cles on nose, and pouch on side; his youthful hose well saved, 
a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big, manly 



260 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

voice, turning again to childish treble, pipes and whistles in 
the sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange, eventful 
history, is — second childishness and mere oblivion ; sans 
teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, — sans everything ! 

Shakespeare. 



THE COMMON LOT, 



Once, in the flight of ages past, there lived a man ; and 
who was he ! Mortal ! howe'er thy lot be cast, that man 
resembled thee. Unknown the region of his birth ; the land 
in which he died, unknown; his name has perished from the 
earth ; this truth survives alone — that joy, and grief, and 
hope, and fear, alternate triumphed in his breast ; his bliss, 
and woe — a smile, a tear; oblivion hides the rest. The 
bounding pulse, the languid limb, the changing spirit's rise 
and fall ; we know that these were felt by him, for these are 
felt by all. He suffered — but his pangs are o'er; enjoyed— 
but his delights are fled ; had friends — his friends are now no 
more ; had foes — his foes are dead. He loved — but whom 
he loved, the grave hath lost in its unconscious womb: O, 
she was fair! but nought could save her beauty from the 
tomb. He saw — whatever thou hast seen ; encountered all 
that troubles thee ; he was — whatever thou hast been ; he 
is — what thou shalt be ! The rolling seasons, day and night, 
sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main — erewhile his por- 
tion — life and light ; to him exist in vain. The clouds and 
sunbeams, o'er his eye that once their shades and glory 
threw, have left, in yonder silent sky, no vestige where they 
flew. The annals of the human race, their ruins since the 
world began, of him afford no other trace than this, — There 
lived a man ! — James Montgomery. 



SPEECH OF SATAN TO HIS LEGION. 

Princes, potentates, warriors ! the flower of heaven, once 
yours ; now lost, if such astonishment as this can seize eter- 
nal spirits; or have ye chosen this place after the toil of 
battle to repose your wearied virtue, for the ease you find to 
slumber here as in the vales of heaven ? Or, in this abject 
posture, have ye sworn to adore the conqueror? who now 
beholds cherub and seraph rolling in the flood, with scattered 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 261 

arms and ensigns ; till anon his swift pursuers from heaven- 
gates discern the advantage, and, descending, tread us down 
thus drooping ; or, with linked thunderbolts, transfix us to 
the bottom of this gulf. Awake ! arise ! or be forever fallen ! 

Milton. 



TREASURES OF THE DEEP. 

What had'st thou in thy treasure-caves arid cells, thou 
hollow sounding and mysterious Main? — pale, -glistening 
pearls, and rainbow-colored shells, bright things which gleam 
unrecked of, and in vain. Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy 
sea ! we ask not such from thee. Yet more, the depths have 
more! What wealth untold, far down and shining through 
their stillness lies ! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning 
gold, won from ten thousand royal argosies. Sweep o'er thy 
spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main ; earth claims not these 
again ! Yet more, the depths have more ! Thy waves have 
rolled above the cities of a world gone by ! Sand hath filled 
up the palaces of old, sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry ! 
Dash o'er them, ocean ! in thy scornful play ; man yields 
them to decay ! Yet more ! the billows and the depths have 
more ! High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast ! 
They hear not now the booming waters roar, the battle 
thunders will not break their rest ; keep thy red gold and 
gems, thou stormy grave — give back the true and brave ! — 
Give back the lost and lovely ! those for whom the place was 
kept at board and hearth so long: the prayer went up 
through midnight's breathless gloom, and the vain yearning 
woke 'mid festal t song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy 
towers o'erthrown, — but all is not thine own ! To thee the 
love of woman hath gone down ; dark flow thy tides o'er 
manhood's noble head, o'er youth's bright locks and beauty's 
flowery crown ; yet must thou hear a voice — " Restore the 
dead." Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee : 
"Restore the dead, thou sea !" — Mrs. Hemans. 



EASTER MORNING-, 



Not another day of the year comes upon the earth with 
such universal acceptance as this. Although every sabbath 
day is now changed to be a day of rejoicing for the resurrec- 



262 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

tion of the Son of God, yet this is the annual and all-inclusive 
day, and is the Sunday of Sundays, which proclaims the res- 
surrection of Christ from the dead with the sounding joy and 
sympathy of the whole Christian world. Christ is risen ! 
There is life, therefore, after death ! His resurrection is the 
symbol and pledge of universal resurrection! 

It was almost nineteen hundred years ago. The world 
had not then just begun. It had passed four thosand trou- 
bled years. Well might holy men deem the old ended and 
the new begun, when with Simeon, they were prepared to 
say, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace !" 
Well might the hopeful expect, from the very hour of Christ's 
resurrection, new scenes, new power, and new life of men 
and nations. Yet how blindly did they expect ! How utter- 
ly unlike expectation have been the results. If we could go 
back to the time of the resurrection of Christ, and learn 
what was the expectation of the most intelligent and the 
most instructed of the early Christian men respecting the 
future, we should doubtless see that every single element of 
it, so far as it related to the outward progress of Christ's 
kingdom in this world, was mistaken. 

Where is Jerusalem, that to the early Christian was to be 
glorified under Christ ? Where are the Jews to-day, that 
were to be God's favored people in a more illustrious reign 
and kingdom ? They are dispersed through all the earth, 
with indigestible nationality, yet immiscible and ungathered. 
Jerusalem is a stage for antiquarians and devout pilgrims. 
The temple is gone, the light of true faith is quenched, and a 
decaying superstition kindles its lurid fire in the place of it. 
From the day that the hand of the government was stretched 
out against Christ, it seems to have been paralyzed, and the 
fabled Wandering Jew is a symbol of the nation itself, vaga- 
bond, restless and wretched — a nation without a land ; a peo- 
ple without a goverement ; a parasitic people, growing upon 
the boughs of other nations, as the mistletoe upon the oak. 

On this morning, of old, the Greek people, broken in poli- 
tical power, were yet the repositories of literature, of philos- 
ophy, of art. They Avere the world's school-masters. . The 
rude Romans first subdued them, and then became their 
scholars, and sat at the feet of those on whose necks they 
had put their own feet. 

But now the torch that kindled the whole world's litera- 
ture has itself gone out. The name and the place of Greece 
remains, but Greece is but a remembrance ; and missionaries 
from distant lands are carrying scanty coals and embers from 
modern altars to kindle again the fires long quenched upon 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 263 

those renowned places of antiquity that gave to the world its 
light. 

The Roman at that time stood supreme ; but the empire is 
dead, ages ago. Rome was the centre of power then. It is 
now the centre of decrepitude. It then commanded the 
world. Now it subsists by the permission of foreign armies. 
Its armies were in the East, in Gaul, in Britain. Europe was 
its realm. Now Rome mutters anathemas with the permis- 
sion of a usurping French Emperor, and is saved from the 
indignation of the Italian people by a mercenary army. 

So long ago did the Jewish national life cease, and the 
Grecian and the Roman, that there has been time since for 
vast intermediate formations. The complex and transitional 
nations of the middle ages have had time for growth and for 
decay, and they, have passed away, and still another growth, 
with modern civilization, is developed — and all since the first 
incoming of this morning of the resurrection, that seemed to 
promise immediate victory to the world. 

And now, a little more than eighteen hundred years after 
the resurrection, the day illustrious above all others, the day 
that brought to light and life the longed-for truths of immor- 
tality, the day that glows with the light of the natural sun, 
not only, but through morning portal pours the efful- 
gence of the great spirit world beyond, the light of the 
land of God — how strangely has it come every year again, 
shining upon all the earth! It came annually for a hundred 
years, and not a Christian temple did it see, and only hidden 
and dispersed Christians. It came for two hundred years 
more, and yet no fanes had been built. The root of Chris- 
tianity had spread, and some leaves had crept along the 
ground like a hidden vine, but no tree of life spread its 
branches, a covert and a shade, for full three hundred years 
after the first shining of this day. 

It came year by year to see Christianity recognized and 
corrupted almost at the same time ; to see the world con- 
vulsed with wars and revolutions .; to see the earth groan 
and travail in pain until now. 

But now, in these later years, the whole Christian world 
celebrates this day again. Five hours ago our fatherland be- 
gan its hymns and chants ; but even before that the solemn 
sounding joy had spread through all the Russian land. 
Across the sea the light brought joy to many a ship ; and 
glancing on the shore, ten thousand spires flash the glad 
illumination, and tremble to the rolling organ beneath, that 
sounds forth the Christian's exultation. It is the Lord's day, 
and the annual day of resurrection. 



264 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Oh, day of God ! comest thou to declare the soul's life ? 
As thy light increases, do we read the dim intimations of na- 
ture more plainly, and, deciphering them, learn the glorious 
doctrine of immortality ? Shall the dead live again ? Shall 
love light again its quenched fire where storms cannot extin- 
guish it ? Shall we find in the future that glorious treasure- 
house into which has been gathered all that is good and best 
of earthly life ? Is there a kingdom where God is King, and 
the King is Father ? Oh, land without tears ! how shall we 
understand thee — we who cannot look but through tears ? 
Oh, land of truth, and purity, and love! art thou real, and 
near, for all who will? — Henry Ward Beeeher, 1864. 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The first French Revolution was an experiment on popu- 
lar institutions which, in its objects and the causes from which 
it sprang, combined all the elements of a great and success- 
ful reform ; and the cause of its direful miscarriage stands 
out therefore conspicuous and undoubted for a lesson to all 
nations. The French peoplefpegan their reform by renouncing 
allegiance to God and to the laws. They proceeded through- 
out upon the principle that Christianity and republicanism 
could not subsist together. This frightful doctrine they 
wrought everywhere into the national mind — expecting to 
hold its terrible volcanic power in check, and control it to 
their purpose, by such devices as a representative convention, 
skilful operations of finance, a political establishment on the 
theory of natural right, and, more absurd than all, a national 
oath, to be renewed by all Frenchmen every fourth year of 
the new calendar, " to live free or die." Infatuated men ! 
Illustrious dupes of impiety and folly! What virtue do you 
expect from your " national oath" after you have thus extir- 
pated every sentiment and every principle that can give it 
solemnity or sanction? What barrier will you raise against 
the tides of popular fury, when they have ceased to obey the 
attraction of the skies ? 

But, that nothing might be wanting to make this experi- 
ment complete and final, or to show that it was made by the 
whole nation in its corporate capacity, the government, by a 
solemn public act, renounced its allegiance to Heaven and 
established impiety by law. It decreed that all religious 
signs, whether in public or private places, which might serve 
to remind the people of their ancient faith, should be annihi- 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTKACTS. 265 

lated. It voted death an eternal sleep. It abolished fune- 
rals, and decreed that all deceased persons should be buried 
like the carcasses of brutes, without ceremony or religious 
service. It abolished the Sabbath, and gave up all churches 
and places of worship to plunder. It ordered the Bible to 
be publicly burnt by the common hangman ; and, as if to ex- 
tirpate the very memory of Scripture history, it instituted a 
new calendar, in which the divisions of time should be 
marked by no reference to the Christian era or to Christian 
institutions. 

The world stood aghast at such a bold and shameless dese- 
cration of everything pure and venerable and holy. Men's 
hearts failed them for fear ,• and they waited for the event in 
fixed astonishment, as they wait for the avalanche or the 
earthquake. Those who managed the vessel of State had 
thrown chart and compass overboard, and madly put out on 
the sea of revolution. They had hailed the rising sun of lib- 
erty with joy; but now that the ocean swelled, and the air 
darkened, with what terror did they behold his broad blood- 
red disk climb a sky black with tempests, and sounding with 
loud thunders from side to side ! It has not been left to us 
to record the horrors and crimes of that eventful period, 
when Paris, the seat of art and elegance and fashion, became 
a great slaughter-house, and the throne and the altar floated 
in blood away from their foundations. When one execution- 
er tired Avith his horrid work of chopping off human heads, 
another was called to stand in his place — and another — and 
another. No love was left. Every man was an assassin ; 
and the murderer of to-day, while his hand was yet upon the 
axe, was marked the victim for to-morrow. And thus the 
Republic, drunk with blood, staggered on under her load of 
misery and crime, towards the gulf of military despotism — 
an abyss dreadful and profound as hell! Anarchy is always 
impatient for a tyrant ; and in a State so fruitful of monsters 
as France had been, he could not long be waited for. There 
was a brief and fearful pause; when lo ! girt about with 
darkness and clad in complete steel, a stern and solitary fig- 
ure, bred out of the seething mass of national corruption — 
the offspring and very image of the times — rose on the high- 
est wave of revolution, with the imperial eagle in his hand! 
The Tribunate hailed him as the supreme head of the nation. 
The Senate entreated him to accept the purple. The army 
followed, and laid the glory of a thousand victories at his 
feet. The people shouted, " Vive JO Empereur Napoleon /" 
and — the French Republic was no more. 

Samuel Edls, 1839. 



266 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE PATIENCE OF POLAND. 

To my brethren in misfortune, the Polish exiles, I have a 
word of thanks to speak. It is eighty-one years since Poland 
first was quartered by a nefarious act of combined royalty, 
which the Swiss Tacitus, Johannes Miiller, well characterized 
by saying that " God permitted the act to show forth the 
morality of kings." And it is twenty-four years since down- 
trodden Poland made the greatest (not the last) manifesta- 
tion of her imperishable vitality, which the cabinets of Europe 
were too narrow-minded to understand, or too corrupt to 
appreciate, — eighty-one years of still unretributed crime, and 
twenty-four years of misery in exile ! It is a long time to 
suffer and not to despair. And all along this time, you pro- 
scribed patriots of Poland, you were suffering and did not 
despair. You stood up before God and the world, a living 
statue, with the unquenchable life-flame of patriotism stream- 
ing through its petrified limbs. You stood up, a protest of 
eternal right against the sway of impious might, a Me?ie, 
Tekel, Upharsin, written in letters of burning blood on the 
walls of despotism. Time, misery and sorrow thinned the 
ranks of your scattered Israel. You have carried your dead 
to the grave, and those who survived went to suffer and to 
hope. Wherever oppressed Freedom reared a banner, you 
rallied around ; — the living statue changed to a fighting hero. 
Many of you fell; but when might triumphed once more 
over virtue and right, the living resumed the wandering 
exile's walking-stick and did not despair. Many among you 
who were young Avhen last they saw the sun rise over Po- 
land's mountains and plains, have their hair whitened and 
their strength broken with age, with anguish and with mis- 
ery; but the patriot heart keeps the freshness of its youth. 
It is young in love of Poland, young in aspirations for her 
freedom, young in hope, and youthfully fresh in determina- 
tion to break Poland's chains. What a rich source of noble 
deeds patriotism must be, to give you strength so much to 
suffer and never to despair. You have given to all of us, 
your younger brethren in the family of exiles, a noble exam- 
ple, which will be fruitful in good time. 

When the battle of Cannae was lost, and Hannibal was 
measuring by bushels the rings of the fallen Roman squires, 
the Senate of Rome voted thanks to Consul Terentius Varro, 
"for not having despaired of the commonwealth." Pro- 
scribed patriots of Poland ! I thank you, and history will 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 267 

thank you, that you have not despaired of resurrection and 
liberty ! 

It is not in vain that nature — and nature is God — made 
Hungary a neighbor to Poland and Poland a neighbor to 
Hungary. Our enemies are the same, and our cause is iden- 
tical. The much I feel, the little T may know, and all I can 
— my heart, my brain, my arm — shall be with Poland. I 
may be nothing, but Hungary is much. And it is the^enius 
of 'Hungary which assures you through my lips, that Hun- 
gary will stand by reviving Poland. — Louis JTossuth. 



RIENZI'S LAST APPEAL TO THE EOMAUS. 

Ye come, then, once again ! Come ye as slaves or free- 
men ? A handful of armed men are in your walls ! will ye, 
who chased from your gates the haughtiest knights — the 
most practiced battle-men of Rome, succumb now to one 
hundred and fifty hirelings and strangers? Will you arm 
for your tribune ? you are silent ! be it so ! "Will you arm 
(or your own liberties — your own. Rome? silent still! By 
the saints that reign on the throne of the heathen gods, are 
ye thus fallen from your birthright? Have you no arms for 
your own defence ? Romans, hear me ! Have I wronged 
you? if so, by your hands let me die ; and then, with knives 
yet reeking with my blood, go forward against the robber 
who is but the herald of your slavery; and I die honored, 
grateful, and avenged. You weep ! Aye, and I could weep, 
too — that I should live to speak of liberty in vain to Ro- 
mans. Weep! is this an hour for tears? Weep now, and 
your tears shall ripen harvests of crime, and license, and des- 
potism, to come! Romans, arm; follow me, at once, to the 
Place of the Colonna : expel this ruffian Minorbino, expel 
your enemy; (no matter what afterwards you do to me,) — 
or, I abandon you to your fate. What! and is it ye who 
forsake me, for whose cause alone man dares to hurl against 
me the thunders of his God, in this act of excommunication? 
Is it not for you that I am declared heretic and rebel? 
What are my imputed crimes ? That I have made Rome, 
and asserted Italy to be free ! that I have subdued the proud 
magnates, who were the scourge both of pope and people ! 
And you — you upbraid me with what I have dared and done 
for you ! Men, with you I would have fought, for you I 
would have perished. You forsake yourselves in forsaking 
me ; and, since I no longer rule over brave men, I 



268 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

power to the tyrants you prefer. Seven months I have ruled 
over you, prosperous in commerce, stainless in justice, victo- 
rious in the field: I have shown you what Rome could be ; 
and since I abdicate the government ye gave me, when I am 
gone, strike for your own freedom ! It matters nothing who 
is the chief of a brave and great people. Prove that Rome 
hath many a Rienzi, but of brighter fortunes. Heed me: I 
ride with these faithful few through the quarter of the Co- 
lonna, before the fortress of your foe. Three times before 
that fortress shall my trumpet sound ; if at the third blast ye 
come not, armed as befits you, I say not all, but three, but 
two, but one hundred of ye, I break up my wand of office, 
and the world shall say one hundred and fifty robbers quelled 
the soul of Rome, and crushed her magistrate and her laws. 

Sir E. JBulwer Lytton. 



KIFG HAROLD'S SPEECH TO HIS ARMY BEFORE THE BATTLE 
OF HASTINGS. 

This day, O friends and Englishmen, sons of our common 
land, — this day, ye fight for liberty. The count of the Nor- 
mans hath, I know, a mighty army; I disguise not its 
strength. That army he hath collected together by promis- 
ing to each man a share in the spoils of England. Already, 
in his court and his camp, he hath parcelled out the lands of 
this kingdom ; and fierce are the robbers that fight for the 
hope of plunder! But he can not offer to his greatest chief 
boons nobler than those I offer to my meanest freeman — lib- 
erty, and right, and law, on the soil of his fathers! Ye have 
heard of the miseries endured, in the old time, under the 
Dane ; but they were slight indeed to those which ye may 
expect from the Norman. The Dane was kindred to us in 
language and in law, and who now can tell Saxon from 
Dane ? But yon men would rule ye in a language ye know 
not; by a h. v that claims the crown as the right of the 
sword, and divides the land among the hirelings of an army. 
We baptized the Dane, and the church tamed his N fierce end 
into peace; but yon men make the church itself their ally, 
and march to carnage under the banner profaned to the foul- 
est of human wrongs ! Offscourings of all nations, they 
come against you ; ye fight as brothers under the eyes of 
your fathers and chosen chiefs ; ye fight for the women we 
would save ; ye fight for the children ye would guard from 
eternal bondage ; ye fight for the altars which yon banner 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 269 

now darkens! Foreign priest is a tyrant as ruthless and 
stern as ye shall find foreign baron and king ! Let no man 
dream of retreat; every inch of ground that ye yield is the 
soil of your native land. For me, on this field I peril all. 
Think that mine eye is upon you, wherever ye are. If a line 
waver or shrink, ye shall hear in the midst the voice of your 
king. Hold fast to your ranks. Remember, such among 
you as fought with me against Hardrada — remember that it 
was not till the Norsemen lost, by rash sallies, their serried 
array, that our arms prevailed against them. Be warned 
by their fatal error, break not the form of the battle ; arid I 
tell you, on the faith of a soldier, who never yet hath left 
field without victory, that ye can not be beaten. While I 
^peak, the winds swell the sails of the Norse ships, bearing 
home the corpse of Hardrada. Accomplish, this day, the 
last triumph of England ; add to these hills a new mount of 
the conquered dead ! And when in far times and strange 
lands, scald and scop shall praise the brave man for some val- 
iant deed, wrought in some holy cause, they shall say, " He 
was brave as those who fought by the side of Harold, and 
swept from the sward of England the hosts of the haughty 
Norman." — Sir M Bulwer Lytton. 



CONSOLATIONS OF EELIGION. 

What is it, O child of sorrow, what is it that now wrings 
thy heart, and bends thee in sadness to the ground ? What- 
ever it be, if thou knowest the truth, the truth shall give thee 
relief. Have the terrors of guilt taken hold of thee ? Dost 
thou go all the day long, mourning for thy iniquities, refusing 
to be comforted? And, in thy bed at night, do visions of 
remorse disturb thy rest, and haunt thee with the fears of a 
judgment to come? Behold, the Redeemer hath borne thy 
sins in his own body on the tree ; and if thou art willing to 
forsake them, thou knowest, with certainty, that they shall 
not be remembered in the judgment against thee. 

Hast thou, with weeping eyes, committed to the grave the 
child of thy affections, the virtuous friend of thy youth, or 
the tender partner whose pious attachment lightened thy 
load of life? Behold, they are not dead! Thou knowest 
that they live in a better region, with their Saviour and their 
God ; that still thou holdest thy place in their remembrance ; 
and that thou shalt soon meet them again, to part no more. 

Dost thou look forward with trembling to the days of 



270 THE PATKIOTIC SPEAKER. 

darkness — when thou shalt lie on the bed of sickness — when 
thy pulse shall have become low — ^vvhen the cold damps have 
gathered on thy brow — when the mournful looks of thy at- 
tendants have told thee that the hour of thy departure has 
come? To the mere natural man, this scene is awful and 
alarming. But, if thou art a Christian, if thou knowest and 
obeyest the truth, thou shalt fear no evil. The shadows 
which hang over the Valley of Death, shall retire at thy ap- 
proach; and thou shalt see beyond it the spirits of the just, 
and an innumerable company of angels — the future com- 
panions of thy bliss — bending from their thrones to cheer 
thy departing soul, and to welcome thee into everlasting 
habitations. — Flnlayson. 



MAN AN UNPROFITABLE SERVANT. 

What merit can there be in human works? If you give 
much alms, whose is the money ? " The silver is mine, and 
the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts." If you mortify 
the body, whose are the macerated limbs ? If you put sack- 
cloth on the soul, whose is the chastened spirit ? If you be 
moral, and honest, and friendly, and generous, and patriotic, 
whose are the dispositions which you exercise — whose the 
powers, to which you give culture and scope ? And if you 
use only God's gifts, can that be meritorious ? You may 
say, " Yes — it is meritorious to use them aright, whilst others 
abuse them." But, is it wickedness to abuse ? Then, it can 
only be duty to use aright ; and duty will be merit when 
debt is donation. You may bestow a fortune in charity, but 
the wealth is already the Lord's. You may cultivate the 
virtues which adorn and sweeten human life ; but the em- 
ployed powers are the Lord's. You may give time and 
strength to the enterprises of philanthropy ; each moment is 
^fi\Q Lord's, each sinew is- the Lord's. You may be upright 
in every dealing of trade, scrupulously honorable in all the 
intercourses of life; but, "a just weight and balance are the 
Lord's, all the weights of the bag are His work." And 
where, then, is the merit of works? Oh, throw into one 
heap each power of the mind, each energy of the body; use, 
in God's service, each grain of your substance, each second 
of your time, give to-the Almighty, every throb of the pulse, 
every drawing of the breath ; labor, and strive, and be in- 
. stant in season and out of season ; and let the steepness of 
the mountain daunt you not, and the swellings of the ocean 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 271 

deter you not, and the ruggedness of the desert appal you 
not; bat, on! still on, in toiling for your Maker! and dream, 
and talk, and boast of merit, when you can find that particle 
in the heap, or that shred in the exploit, which you may ex- 
clude from the confession — "All things come of Thee, and 
of thine own, O God, have I given Thee." — Melville, 



PEEACEISTG CHEIST IN THE METROPOLIS. 

All the causes which conspired to build up cities in the 
day of St. Paul, to make them powerful as the ' agents of 
civilization, or splendid as its exponents, are now operating, 
remember, with greater energy, celerity, and extensiveness ; 
and are coming to their result in towns more brilliant, and 
more influential, and hardly less vicious, than those in which 
his ministry was performed. Take this . metropolis in illus- 
tration of the truth. Where the narrow Mediterranean 
spread forth before Antioch, there stretches before us the 
expanse of an ocean, to the men of that century terrible and 
unsearchable, but which, in all its coasts and islands, in the 
coral reefs that rise through it, in even the sunken rocks 
which it enfolds, is now known to navigation. And not this 
only: there spreads forth also, connected with this, that 
other mightier and less turbulent sea which heaves its tides 
across three-sevenths of the circumference of the globe, and 
washes the shores to which the arms of Antigonus or Anti- 
ochus, of Augustus himself, had never sent a single rumor. 
All the world is thus opened to that out-running enterprise 
which here has its seat. Every fourth day through the year 
there come to us voices from the whole area of the inhabited 
earth. ' The political, commercial, and social influences which 
here are established, send abroad in reply their powerful im- 
pression. 

We have the most marvellous apparatus of instruments 
with which to assist and to consummate these tendencies. 
Instead of the few and timorous boats which tardily de- 
scended from Antioch by the Orontes, till they tremulously 
tossed on the Mediterranean, there go from us with every 
morning those statelier ships that shall wrestle with seas and 
wildest winds, and from the contest come out unharmed; 
there go those almost animated ships, more tireless and swift 
than the old triumphal chariots of the games, within which 
pants that swarthy giant who rears so much of all that is 
proudest, and moves so ceaselessly all that is swiftest, in our 



272 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

civilization. And instead of the solitary pass of the Taurus, 
along whose narrow and rocky defiles the caravans descended 
to bear to Antioch their scanty burdens, there now to us 
through liquid channels, hollowed by man or framed by 
God, there rush upon us, over ways made level and smooth 
as floors, in caravan-trains whose tread thunders equal and 
steady as a star's, from all the expanded districts and States 
that make the interior, their exuberant wealth. 

And then remember that behind these instruments and 
vehicles of thought there stands a people, the majority of it — 
unlike the mixed and sensual mass of Greeks, Romans, Syri- 
ans, Jews, who made the majority of the population of Anti- 
och — united in the sentiment of the authority of justice as 
between man and man, in the sentiment of reverence for 
liberty as man's birthright, and of reverence for Christianity 
as God's revelation, and eager to inform and to transform the 
world through these ideas ; and you see again what an emi- 
nent pulpit this metropolis is, in which and from which to 
preach Christ to mankind. He who preaches Him here, 
preaches to India, China, Japan, to Kamtschatka and Labra-* 
dor, to the Society Islands, to Borneo and Siam. He sweeps 
not merely that " many-nationed sea" the Mediterranean ; 
but round the world, on every coast, is felt the far vibration 
of bis influence. " Not an axe falls in the American forest," 
said an English statesman long ago, " but it sets in motion 
a shuttle in Manchester." Not a voice speaks for Christ, we 
may say as well, in these central American cities, but its 
echo is heard, sometime or other, wherever the shuttle sends 
its fabric, wherever the traveller pierces the jungle, wherever 
the dawn of a Christian civilization begins to disperse the 
heathen night. — R*. S. Storrs, Jr. 



THE TEACHER THE HOPE OF AMERICA. 

Look abroad over this country; mark her extent, her 
wealth, her fertility, her boundless resources, the giant en- 
ergies which every day developes, and which she seems al- 
ready bending on that fatal race — tempting, yet always fatal 
to republics — the race for physical greatness and aggrandize- 
ment. Behold, too, that continuous and mighty tide of pop- 
ulation, native and foreign, which is forever rushing through 
this great valley towards the setting sun; sweeping away 
the wilderness before it like grass before the mower ; waking 
up industry and civilization in its progress ; studding the sol- 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 2*73 

itary rivers of the West with marts and cities ; dotting its 
boundless prairies with human habitations ; penetrating every 
green nook and vale ; climbing every fertile ridge ; and still 
gathering and pouring onward, to form new States in those 
vast and yet unpeopled solitudes, where the Oregon rolls his 
majestic flood and 

" Hears no sound save his own dashing." 

Mark all this, and then say : by what bonds will you hold 
together so mighty a people and so immense an empire ? 
What safeguard will you give us against the dangers which 
must inevitably grow out of so vast and complicate an or- 
ganization? In the swelling tide of our prosperity, what a 
field will open for political corruption ! What a world of 
evil passions to control, and jarring interests to reconcile ! 
What temptations will there be to luxury and extravagance ! 
What motives to private and official cupidity ! What prizes 
will hang glittering at a thousand goals, to dazzle and tempt 
ambition ! Do we expect to find our security against these 
dangers in railroads and canals ; in our circumvallations and 
ships of war? Alas ! when shall we learn wisdom from the 
lessons of history ? Our most dangerous enemies will grow 
up from our own bosom. We may erect bulwarks against 
foreign invasion ; but what power shall we find in walls and 
armies to protect the people against themselves ? There is 
but one sort of " internal improvement" — more thoroughly 
internal than that which is cried up by politicians — that is 
able to save this country. I mean the improvement of the 
minds and souls of her people. If this improvement shall 
be neglected, and shall fail to keep pace with the increase of 
our population and our physical advancement, one of two 
alternatives is certain : either the nation must dissolve in an- 
archy under the rulers of its own choice, or, if held together 
at all, it must be by a government so strong and rigorous as 
to be utterly inconsistent with constitutional liberty. Let 
the one hundred millions which, at no very distant day, will 
swarm our cities, and fill up our great interior, remain sunk 
in ignorance, and nothing short of an iron despotism will 
suffice to govern the nation — to reconcile its vast and con- 
flicting interests, control its elements of agitation, and hold 
back its fiery and headlong energies from dismemberment 
and ruin. 

How then is this improvement to be effected ? Who are 
the agents of it? Who are they who shall stand perpetually 
as priests at the altar of freedom, and feed its sacred fires, by 



274 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

dispensing that knowledge and cultivation on which hangs 
our political salvation ? I repeat, they are our teachers, the 
masters of our schools, the instructors in our academies and 
colleges, and in all those institutions of whatever name which 
have for their object the intellectual and moral culture of our 
youth, and the diffusion of knowledge among our people. 
Theirs is the moral dignity of stamping the great features of 
our national character ; and, in the moral worth and intelli- 
gence which they give it, to erect a bulwark which shall 
prove impregnable in that hour of trial, when armies and 
fleets and fortifications shall be vain. And when those 
mighty and all-absorbing questions shall be heard, which are 
even now sending their bold demands into the ear of rulers 
and lawgivers, which are momentarily pressing forward to a 
solemn decision in the sight of God and of all nations, and 
which, when the hour of their decision shall come, will shake 
this country — the Union, the Constitution— as with the 
shaking of an earthquake, — it is they who in that fearful hour 
will gather around the structure of our political organization, 
and, with uplifted hands, stay the reeling fabric till the storm 
and the convulsion be overpast. 

" The sensual and the dark rebel in vain, 
Slaves by their own compulsion. In mad game 
They burst their manacles, and wear the name 
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain." 

Samuel Eells. 1837. 



THE TEACHER'S OLD AGE. 

Mark yonder feeble and decrepit old man, as, panting with 
fatigue, and grasping his staff with both his hands, he slowly 
makes his way along one of your public streets. He is a 
veteran teacher. He commenced his employment in early 
life, and the first scene of his labors was on a bleak and rocky 
hillside, in the interior of his own New England. When the 
call of his country rung among his native mountains, he left 
his peaceful charge, to meet her enemies on the tented field, 
and to bring back her eagles in triumph from the scene of 
battle. After the achievement of our independence, he re- 
turned to his favorite employment, and became one of a small 
band who, with the axe and the rifie, plunged into the West- 
ern forests, and, amidst toil and danger and suffering, laid 
the foundations of a great and prosperous people. With his 
own hands he helped to pile the logs of the first school-house 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTEACTS. 275 

that was erected on the spot where now stands your "beauti- 
ful and prosperous city ; and, having reared, he entered it, 
and with the devotion of an apostle, officiated as the in- 
structor of many whose sons and whose daughters we may 
now recognize around us as the founders of families and the 
pillars and ornaments of society. Thousands of youth, in 
his day and generation, has he taken from the paternal roof, 
and given back to their parents and their country, with a 
discipline and a cultivation worthy of both. They have gone 
out into the four quarters of the world ; they may be found 
scattered through all the ranks of society, in all the arts and 
occupations of life, and in all the liberal professions, which 
they live to dignify and adorn. Better than the most suc- 
cessful candidate for popular favor — better than he for whom 
we erect triumphal arches, and whose path we strew with 
garlands — has he merited the proud title of benefactor Of his 
country ! But what is his reward ? Throughout life he has 
struggled with embarrassment and want; and, forced at last, 
by the infirmities of three-score and ten years, from his pro- 
fession, he lingers out, in an obscure part of your city, a 
stinted and companionless old age, with no consolation for a 
life of unrequited toil but the reflection that it has been 
a useful life, devoted, with fidelity and singleness of pur- 
pose, to the well-being of his country and his fellow-men. 
Mark, now, the generosity, the justice, of a grateful and dis- 
criminating public. This palsied. and infirm old man— this 
man who, more than statesmen or politicians, deserves to be 
honored with monumental marble, and days of public festivity 
and rejoicing — has come out to feel the warm light of the 
sun, and to gaze once more upon those new scenes which 
have arisen around him, and which so mournfully remind 
him that he is becoming "a stranger in the midst of a new 
succession of men." (The young, the gay and the fashiona- 
ble throng pass him, but ungreeted, unnoticed, he totters on. 
The men of business rush by him, and jostle him as they go. 
Presently he hears a confusion of mingled voices, and then 
cries and shouts rend the air. Planting his staff" before him, 
he stops ; and, as he raises his dimmed eyes, he discovers a 
hurrying and gathering crowd. He inquires the meaning 
from some passer-by, and learns that it is the gala-clay tri- 
umph of some political adventurer, some heartless dema- 
gogue, who has obtained his supremacy by feeding the pas- 
sions and flattering the vanity of the people. 

-" The statesman of the day— 



A pompous and slow-moving pageant comes. 
Some shout him, and some hang upon his oar 



276 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

To gaze in his eyes and "bless him. Maidens wave 

Their kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy ; 

While others, not so satisfied, unhorse 

The gilded equipage, and turning loose 

His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve. 

Why ? What hath charmed them ? Hath he saved the State ? 

No ! Doth he purpose its salvation ? - No. 

Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise, * 

And dedicate a tribute, in its use 

And just direction sacred, to a thing 

Doomed to the dust, or lodged already there." 

Samuel Mils, 1837. 



AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

Thirty years ago, it was asked, " Who reads an American 
book ?" It may now be asked, what intelligent man in all 
Europe does not read an American book ? Who is there ? 
Sam Rogers reads them, Henry Hallam reads them, McCul- 
loch reads them, Lord Mahon reads them, and sometimes 
finds himself answered when he comments on them. And 
there is not an intelligent man in all Europe who does not 
read our American authors, and especially our legal and his- 
torical works. And in France, Thiers and Guizot read them ; 
and throughout the vast population of France there is no 
doubt that there is a greater devotion paid to the study of 
our popular institutions — to the principles which have raised 
us to the point at which we now stand — than there is paid to 
the monarchical institutions and principles of government of 
every other part of Europe. America is no longer undistin- 
guished for letters — for literature. I will not mention those 
authors of our own day, now living, who have so much at- 
tracted the attention of the world by their literary produc- 
tions. 

Gentlemen, a circumstance occurred in the city of Madrid, 
which I ought not to forget. There it was that an event 
took place which raised me to eminence in the literary world, 
of my position in which I was not previously aware. Under 
the eye of the ministry, an article appeared in the Madrid Ga- 
zette, which was intended to be rather complimentary to the 
Secretary of State of the United States, and which said that 
he was the most distinguished man of letters in bis country ; 
and that he was the immortal author of the celebrated dic- 
tionary of the English language. I the author of • an En- 
glish dictionary ! Shade of Noah Webster ! what do you 
think of such»an intrusion on your rights and your property ? 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 277 

Is it said that the Secretary of State was the author of N"oali 
Webster's dictionary of the English language? Why, he 
could not write the first spelling-book that JSToah Webster 
produced ; and that is true. I am no man of letters, in the 
literary acceptation of that term. But it has sometimes hap- 
pened in the course of my official duties, that I have been 
called upon to write a letter, and that duty I fulfil. 

Webster, 1852. 



REPUDIATION 



What can be the debt of a State like Pennsylvania, that 
she should not be able to pay it — that she cannot pay it, if she 
will but take from her pocket the money that she has in it ? 
England's debt is engrafted upon her very soil ; she is bound 
down to the very earth by it ; and it will affect England and 
the Englishmen to the fiftieth generation. But the debt of 
Pennsylvania — the debt of Illinois: — the debt of any State in 
the Union, amounts not to a sixpence in comparison. Let us 
be Americans — but let us avoid, as we despise, the charac- 
ter of an acknowledged insolvent community. 

What importance is it what other nations say to us, or 
what they think of us — if they can nevertheless say, " You 
don't pay your debts ?" jESTow, gentlemen, I belong to Mas- 
sachusetts ; but if I belonged to a deeply indebted State, I'd 
work these ten fingers to their stumps ; I'd hold plough, I'd 
drive plough, I'd do both, before it should be said of the 
State to which I belonged, that she did not pay her debts. 
That's the true principle, — let us act upon it, let us " go it," 
to its full extent ! If it costs us our comforts, let us sacrifice 
our comforts; if it costs us our farms, let us mortgage our 
farms. But don't let it be said by the proud capitalists of 
England, " You don't pay your debts." " You Republican 
Governments don't pay your debts." Let us say to them, 
"We will pay them," — "We will pay them to the utter- 
most farthing." That's my firm conviction of what we ought 
to do. That's my opinion, and water can't drown — fire can'.t 
burn it out of .me. If America owes a debt, let her pay it, 
let her pay it. What I have is ready for the sacrifice. 
What you have I know would be ready for the sacrifice. 
At any rate, and at any sacrifice, don't let it be said on the 
exchanges of London or Paris, — don't let it be said in any 
one of the proud monarchies of Europe, "America owes, and 
can't, or won't pay." God forbid ! Let us pay — let us pa¥. 

Webster, 1843. 



278 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



COERCION 



For what purpose is the unlimited control of the purse 
and of the sword to be placed at the disposition of the exec- 
utive ? To make war against one of the free and sovereign 
members of this confederation, which the bill proposes to 
deal with, not as a State, but as a collection of banditti or 
outlaws ; thus exhibiting the impious spectacle of this Gov- 
ernment, the creature of the States, making war against the 
power to which it owes its own existence. 
- Do I say that the bill declares war against South Carolina? 
No ! it decrees a massacre of her citizens ! War has some- 
thing ennobling about it, and with all its horrors, brings into 
action the highest qualities, intellectual and moral. It was, 
perhaps, in the order of Providence, that it should be per- 
mitted for that very purpose. But this bill declares no war, 
except, indeed, it be that which savages wage ; a war, not 
against the community, but the citizens of whom that commu- 
nity is composed. But I regard it as worse than savage 
warfare — as an attempt to take away life, under the color of 
law, without the trial by jury, or any other safeguard which 
the Constitution has thrown around the life of a citizen ! It 
authorizes the President, or even his deputies, when they 
may consider the law to be violated, without the intervention 
of a court or jury, to kill without mercy or discrimination. 

It has been said, by the Senator from Tennessee, to be a 
measure of peace ! Yes, such peace as the wolf gives to the 
lamb, the kite to the dove ! Such peace as Russia gives to 
Poland, or death to its victim! A peace by extinguishing 
the political existence of a State, by awing her into an aban- 
donment of the exercise of every power which constitutes 
her a sovereign community ! It is to South Carolina a ques- 
tion of self-preservation ; and I proclaim it, that, should this 
bill pass, and an attempt be made to enforce it, it will be re- 
sisted at every hazard — even that of death itself! 

Death is not the greatest calamity ; there are others still 
more terrible to the free and brave, and among them may be 
placed the loss of liberty and honor. There are thousands 
of her brave sons, who, if need be, are prepared cheerfully to 
lay down their lives in defense of the State, and the great 
principles of constitutional liberty for which she is contend- 
ing. God forbid that this should become necessary ! It never 
can be, unless this Government is resolved to bring the ques- 
tion to extremity ; when her gallant sons will stand prepared 
to perform the last duty — to die nobly! — Calhoun. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 279 



CHILDEEN OF DECEASED OFFIOEES. 

I differ, Mr. Chairman, from the honorable gentleman 
from Massachusetts, who denies that sympathy ought to be 
felt for the children of deceased officers, who may be in 
want. Those child ren have not served us, it is true ; but 
their fathers who did, are beyond the reach of our gratitude, 
and the transfer of the feeling is natural and just. Public 
benefits bestowed on the children of the deceased father en- 
courage him who is alive in the discharge of his duty, by 
the purest of all motives — paternal affection ; and that legis- 
lation must be unwise, indeed, that fails to enlist, in support 
of the State, all the best impulses of humanity. 

Let that republic get on as it can, where the veteran, 
blind, maimed, and poor, like Belisarius, is forced to apply 
to public charity for support ! Let that republic get on as 
it can, where contracts are broken, and public beneficence 
refused ; where nothing is given but what is in the bond — 
and that is frequently refused ! Let that republic get on as 
it can ! It will never produce anything great ; its career will 
be short and inglorious ; its fall certain and unpitied ; its 
history remembered as a warning, not as an example ; and 
the names of its legislators and statesmen buried in oblivion 
to which their false economy tends to consign the memory 
of those who have established its freedom, or defended it 
from aggression. May our republic show, by its decision on 
this bill, that it has a higher destiny, and that it is guarded 
as well by liberality and honor, as by justice ! 

Hon. Edward Livingston, 1827. 



NEW ENGLANDEES IN NEW OELEANS. 

While we devote this day to the remembrance of our 
native land, we forget not that in which our happy lot is 
cast. We exult in the reflection, that, though we count by 
thousands the miles which separate us from our birthplace, 
still our country is the same. We are no exiles, meeting 
upon the banks of a foreign river, to swell its waters with 
our home-sick tears. Here floats the same banner which 
rustled over our boyish heads, except that its mighty folds 
are wider, and its glittering stars increased in number. 

The sons of Kew England are found in every State of the 
broad -Republic. In the East, the South, and the unbounded 



280 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

West, their blood mingles freely with every kindred current. 
We have but changed our chamber in the paternal mansion ; 
in all its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit it are 
our brothers. To us, the Union has but one domestic 
hearth ; its sacred household gods are all the same. 

Upon Us, then, peculiarly devolves the duty of feeding the 
fires upon that kindly hearth ; of guarding, with pious care, 
those sacred household gods. 

We can not do with less than the whole Union ; to us it 
admits of no division. In the veins of our children flows 
Northern and Southern blood. How shall it be separated ? 
Who shall put asunder the best affections of the heart, the 
noblest instincts of our nature ? We love the land of our 
adoption ; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true 
to both ; and always exert ourselves in maintaining the unity 
of our country, the integrity of the republic. 

Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen the golden 
cord of Union ; thrice accursed the traitorous lips, whether 
of Northern fanatic or Southern demagogue, which shall 
propose its severance ! But no ! the Union cannot be dis- 
solved ; its fortunes are too briliant to be marred — its des- 
tinies too powerful to be resisted. Here will be their 
greatest triumph, their most mighty developement. 

And when, a century hence, this Crescent City shall have 
filled her golden horns ; when within her broad-armed port 
shall be gathered the products of a hundred millions of free- 
men ; when galleries of art and halls of learning shall have 
made classic this mart of trade ; then may the sons of the 
Pilgrims, still wandering from the bleak hills of the North, 
stand upon the banks of the Great River, and exclaim, with 
mingled pride and wonder, — Lo ! this is our country. 
When did the world ever witness so rich and magnificent a 
city, — so great and glorious a republic ? 

S. 8. Prentiss, 1845. 



TREE DISCUSSION, 



Sir, admit — for we must admit — that free discussion has 
ever been odious to the tyrant, and to all the minions of licen- 
tious power ; but can we ever forget how eloquent, how en- 
chanting the voice of that same freedom of speech has, in all 
ages, been, wherever its tones have fallen on the ear of free- 
men? Free discussion, and liberty itself, eloquence and free- 
dom of speech, are contemporaneous fires, and brighten and 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 281 

blaze, or languish and go out, together. Athenian liberty 
was, for years, protracted by that free discussion, which was 
sustained and continued in Athens. Freedom was prolonged 
by eloquence. Liberty paused and lingered, that she might 
listen to the divine intonations of her voice. Free discussion^ 
the eloquence of one man, rolled back the tide of Macedo- 
nian power, and long preserved his country from the over- 
whelming deluge. When the light of free discussion had, 
throughout all the Grecian cities, been extinguished in the 
blood of those statesmen by whose eloquence it had been 
sustained, young Tully, breathing the spirit of Roman lib- 
erty on the expiring embers, relumed and transmitted, from 
the banks of the Ilissus to those of the Tiber, this glorious 
light of freedom. This mighty master of the forum, by his 
free discussions, both from the rostrum and in the senate- 
house, gave new vigor, and a longer duration of existence, 
to the liberty of his country. Who more than Marcus Tul- 
lius Cicero, was loved and cherished by the friends of that 
country ? Who more feared and hated by traitors and 
tyrants? Freedom of speech, Roman eloquence, and Ro- 
man liberty, expired together, when under the proscription 
of the second triumvirate, the hired bravo of Mark Antony 
placed in the lap of one of his profligate minions the head 
and the hands of Tully, the statesman, the orator, the illus- 
trious father of his country. After amusing herself some 
hours by plunging her bodkin through that tongue which had 
so long delighted the senate and the rostrum, and made An- 
tony himself tremble in the midst of his legions, she ordered 
that head, and those hands, then the trophies of a savage 
despotism, to be set up in the forum. 

"Her last good man, dejected Rome adored ; 
Wept for her patriot slain, and cursed the tyrant's sword." 

English statesmen and orators, in the free discussion of the 
English parliament, have been formed on those illustrious 
models of Greek and Roman policy and eloquence. Multi- 
plied by the teeming labors of the press, the works of the 
master and the disciple have come to our hands ; and the 
eloquence of Chatham, of Burke, of Fox, and of the younger 
Pitt, reaches us, not in the feeble and evanescent voice of 
tradition, but preserved and placed before the eye on the 
more imperishable page. Neither these great originals, nor 
their improved transcripts, have been lost to our country. 
The American political school of free discussion has enriched 
the nation with some distinguished scholars; and Dexter, 



282 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

and Morris, and Pinckney will not soon be forgotten by our 
country, or by the literary world. Some men who now live 
may hereafter be found deserving of that life in the menory 
of posterity, which very great men have thought no un- 
worthy object of a glorious ambition. Who can censure this 
anxious wish to live in human memory ? When we feel 
ourselves borne along the current of time ; when we see our- 
selves hourly approach that cloud, impenetrable to the human 
eye, which terminates the last visible portion of this moving 
estuary; who of us, although he may hope, when he reaches 
it, to shoot through that dark barren into a more bright and 
peaceful region, yet who, I say, can feel himself receding 
swiftly from the eye of all human sympathy, leaving the vis- 
ion of all human monuments, and not wish, as he passes by, 
to place on those monuments some little memorial of himself 
— some volume of a book — or, perhaps, but a single page, 
that it may be remembered, 

" When we are not, that we have been ?" 

Sir, these models of ancient and modern policy and elo- 
quence, formed in the great schools of free discussion, both 
in earlier and later times, are in the hands of thousands of 
those youths who are now, in all parts of our country, form- 
ing themselves for the public service. This hall is the bright 
goal of their generous, patriotic, and glorious ambition. Sir, 
they look hither with a feeling not unlike that devotion felt 
by the pilgrim as he looks towards some venerated shrine. 
Do not — I implore you, Sir, do not — by your decision this 
day, abolish the rites of liberty, consecrated in this place. 
Extinguish not those fires on her altar, which should here be 
eternal. Suffer not, suffer not the rude hand of this more 
than Vandal violence to demolish, " from turret to foundation- 
stone," this last sanctuary of freedom. — Tristram Burges. 



NATIONAL INJUSTICE. 

Do you know how empires find their end ? Yes, the great 
states eat up the little ; as with fish, so with nations. Aye, 
but how do the great states come to an end ? By their own 
injustice, and no other cause. Come with me, my friends, 
come with me into the Inferno of the nations, with such poor 
guidance as my lamp can lend. Let us disquiet and bring 
up the awful shadows of empires buried long ago, and learn 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 283 

a lesson from the tomb. Jjjgjjufa o\A Assyria, with the Nine- 



vitish dove upoi tMi^ emeMdP^rown. What laid thee low ? 
" I fell by my owrPmjustice. Thereby Nineveh and Baby- 
lon came with me to the ground." Oh! queenly Persia, 
flame of the nations, wherefore art thou so fallen, who trod- 
dest the people under thee, bridgedst the Hellespont with 
ships, and pouredst thy temple-wasting millions on the 
western world ? " Because I trod thej|people under me, and 
bridged the Hellespont with ships, anfi poured my temple- 
wasting millions on the western wonjd. I fell by my own 
misdeeds !" Thou, muse-like GreciJk queen, fairest of all 
thy classic sisterhood of states, enqjuanting yet the world 
with thy sweet witchery, speaking in^t, and most seductive 
song, why liest thou there with the beauteous yet dishonored 
brow, reposing on thy broken harp ?jf. " I scorned the law of 
God ; banished and prisoned wisest, justest men ; I loved the 
loveliness of flesh embalmed in Parian stone ; I loved the 
loveliness of thought, and treasured that in more than Pa- 
rian speech. But the beauty of justice, the loveliness of 
love, I trod them down to earth. Lo, therefore, have I be- 
come as those barbarian states — as one of them !" Oh, 
manly majestic Rome, thy seven-fold mural crown all broken at 
thy feet, why art thou here ? 'Twas not injustice brought thee 
low ; for thy Great Book of Law is prefaced with these 
words, " Justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give 
each man his Right !" " It was not the saint's ideal, it was 
the hypocrite's pretense! I made iniquity my law, I trod the 
nations under me. Their wealth gilded my palaces, — where 
thou mayest see the fox and hear the owl, — it fed my cour- 
tiers and my courtezans. Wicked men were my cabinet 
counsellors — the flatterer breathed his poison in my ear. 
Millions of bondmen wet the soil with tears and blood. Do 
you not hear it crying yet to God ? Lo, here have. I my 
recompense, tormented with such downfalls as you see ! Go 
back, and tell the new-born child, who sitteth on the Alle- 
ghanies, laying his either hand upon a tributary sea, a crown 
of thirty stars upon his youthful brow — tell him there are 
rights which states must keep, or they shall suffer wrongs. 
Tell him there is a God who keeps the black man and the 
white, and hurls to earth the loftiest realm that breaks his 
just, eternal law ! Warn the young empire that he come 
not down dim and dishonored to my shameful tomb ! Tell 
him that Justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to grve 
each man his Right. I knew it, broke it, I am lost. Bid 
him keep it and be safe !" — Theodore Parker. 



1 

284. THE PATRIOTIC JSPEAKER, 



inHPhraSfttT 



A FAREWELL TO DE^P^TJG^^tJNTEERS. 

Go forth, defenders of your country, accompanied with 
every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, 
where God himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too 
much interested in »ur success not to lend you her aid. 
She will shed over M>ur enterprise her selectest influence. 
While you are engag«J in the field, many will repair to the 
closet, many to the s»ptuary ; the faithful of every name will 
employ that prayer i«ch has power with God ; the feeble 
hands which are unecKl to any other weapon, will grasp the 
sword of the spirit ;^Bd, from myriads of humble, contrite 
hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication and weeping, 
will mingle, in its asceA to heaven, with the shouts of battle 
and the shock of arms.™ 

While you have everything to fear from the success of the 
enemy, you have every means of preventing that success ; so 
that it is next to impossible for victory not to crown your 
exertions. The extent of your resources, under God, is 
equal to the justice of your cause. But, should Providence 
determine otherwise, — should you fall in this struggle, should 
the nation fall, — you will have the satisfaction (the purest al- 
lotted to man) of having performed your part ; your names 
will be enrolled with the most illustrious dead, w 7 hile pos- 
terity, to the end of time, as often as they revolve the events 
of this period (and they will incessantly revolve them), will 
turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the 
freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. 

I cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and 
patriots of every age and country, are bending from their 
elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapa- 
ble, till it be brought to a favorable issue, of enjoying their 
eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious mortals! Your 
mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed 
with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are 
ready to svwar, by Him that sitteth on the throne, and liveth 
for ever and ever, that they will protect freedom in her last 
asylum, and never desert her cause, which you sustained by 
your labors, and cemented with your blood ! 

Rev. Robert Hall, 1803. 



Li 

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 285 



.♦. 



+ 



A GENEBAL. 



Sir, we all know the military studies of this military gen- 
tleman before he was promoted. I take it to be beyond a 
reasonable doubt that he had perused with great care the 
title-page of " Baron Steuben." Nay, I go further ; I ven- 
ture to assert, without vouching in me least from personal 
knowledge, that he has prosecuted lwresearches so far as to 
be able to know that the rear rank ftands right behind the 
front. This, I think, is fairly inferable from what I under- 
stood him to say of the two lines oj? encampment at Tippe- 
canoe. We all, in fancy, now seethe gentleman in that 
most dangerous and glorious evemf in the life of a militia 
general on the peace establishment^a parade day ! that day, 
for which all the other days of W§ life seem to have been 
made. We can see the troops in motion — umbrellas, hoes 
and axe-handles, and other deadly implements of war, over- 
shadowing all the field — when, lo! the leader of the host ap- 
proaches ! " Far off his coming shines." His plume, which, 
after the fashion of the great Bourbon, is of awful length, 
reads its doleful history in the bereaved necks and bosoms 
of forty neighboring hen-roosts. Like the great SuwarofF, 
he seems somewhat careless in forms or points of dress ; 
hence his epaulette may be on his shoulders, back, or sides, 
but still gleaming, gloriously gleaming, in the sun. Mounted 
he is, too, let it not be forgotten. Need I describe to the 
colonels and generals of this honorable House the steed which 
heroes bestride on these occasions ? No ! I see the memory 
of other days is with you. You see before you the military 
gentleman mounted on his crop-eared, bushy-tailed mare, for 
height just fourteen hands, " all told." Yes, sir, there you 
see his " steed that laughs at the shaking of the spear," that 
is his war-horse, " whose neck is clothed with thunder." Mr. 
Speaker, we have glowing descriptions in history of Alexander 
the Great and his war-horse Bucephalus, at the head of the invin- 
cible Macedonian phalanx; but, sir, such are the improvements 
of modern times, that every one must see that our militia gene- 
ral, with his crop-eared mare, with bushy tail, would totally 
frighten off a battle-field a hundred Alexanders. The gene- 
ral, thus mounted and equipped, is in the field, and ready for 
action. On the eve of some desperate enterprise, such as 
giving order to shoulder arms, it may be, there occurs a 
crises or one of those accidents in war which no sagacity could 
foresee nor prevent. A cloud rises and passes over the sun. 
Here is an occasion for the display of that greatest of all 



286 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

traits in the history of a conmiawler — the,tapt which enables 
him to seize upon and turn to good ac£ffi|nt unlooked-for, 
agents as they arise. Nov/ for the cautron wherewith the 
Roman Fabius foiled the skill and courage of Hannibal. A 
retreat is ordered, and troops and general, in a twinkling are 
found safely bivouacked in a neighboring grocery. But even 
here, the general still has room for the execution of heroic 
deeds. Hot from the field, and chafed with the heroic events 
of the day, your general unsheathes his trenchant blade, 
eighteen inches in length, as you will remember, and with 
energy and remorseless fury he slices the water-melons that 
lie in heaps around him, and shares them with his surviving 
friends. Others of the sinews of war are not wanting here. 
Whisky, Mr. Speaker, that great leveller of modern times, is 
here also, and the shellsi-of the water-melons are filled to the 
brim. Here again, Mr. Speaker, is shown how the extremes 
of barbarism and civilization meet. As the Scandinavian 
heroes of old, after the fatigues of war, drank wine from the 
skulls of their slaughtered enemies, in Odin's halls, so now 
our militia general, and his forces, from the skulls of the 
melons thus vanquished, in copious draughts of whisky as- 
suage the heroic fires of their souls, after a parade day. 

Hon. TJiomas Corwin. 



Off REDUCING THE ARMY. 

Sir, we have heard a great deal about parliamentary 
armies, and about an army continued from year to year. I 
always have been, Sir, and always shall be, against a stand- 
ing army of any kind. To me it is a terrible thing. Whether 
under that of a parliamentary or any other designation, a 
standing army is still a standing army, whatever name it be 
called by. They are a body of men distinct from the body 
of the people. They are governed by different laws ; and 
blind obedience and an entire submission to the orders of 
their commanding officer is their only principle. It is, in- 
deed, impossible, that the liberties of the people can be pre- 
served in any country where a standing army is kept up. 
By the military law, the administration of justice is so quick, 
and the punishment so severe, that neither officer nor soldier 
dares offer to dispute the orders of his supreme commander. 
If an officer were commanded to pull his own father out of 
this House, he must do it. Immediate death would be the 
sure consequence of the least grumbling. And if an officer 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 287 

were sent into the Court of Request, accompanied by a body 
of musketeers with screwed bayonets, and with orders to tell 
us what we ought to do, and how we were to vote, I know 
what would be the duty of this House ; I know it would be 
our duty to order the officer to be taken and hanged up at 
the door of our lobby ; but, sir, I doubt much if such a spirit 
could be found in this House, or in any House of Commons 
that will ever be in England. 

Sir,- 1 talk not of imaginary things; I talk of what has hap- 
pened to an English House of Commons, and from an English 
army ; not only from an English army, but an army that was 
raised by that, very House of Commons, an army that was 
paid by them, and an army that was commanded by generals 
appointed by them. Therefore, do not let us vainly imagine 
that an army, raised and maintained by authority of Parlia- 
ment, will always be submissive to them. If any army be so 
numerous as to have it in their power to overawe the Parlia- 
ment, they will be submissive as long as the Parliament does 
nothing to disoblige their favorite general; but, when that 
case happens, I am afraid that, in place of the Parliament's 
dismissing the army, the army will dismiss the Parliament, 
as they have done heretofore. We are come to the Rubicon. 
Our army is now to be reduced, or it never will be ; and this 
nation, already overburdened with debts and taxes, must be 
loaded with the heavy charge of perpetually supporting a 
numerous standing army, and remain forever exposed to the 
danger of having its liberties trampled upon by any future 
king or ministry who shall take it in their heads to do so, and 
shall take a proper care to model the army for that purpose. 

Hon. William Fulteney. 



LAST WOEDS. 



[The following extracts are taken from a speech made by Elijah 
P. Lovejoy to^ a meeting of citizens in Alton, 111., a day or two be- 
fore lie was' killed by a mob, while defending- his printing-press from 
violence. The latter event occurred Nov. 7, 1837.] 

I. 

I feel, Mr. Chairman, that this is the most solemn moment 
of my life. I feel, I trust, in some measure the responsibili- 
ties which at this hour I sustain to these my fellow- citizens, 
to the church of which I am a minister, to my country, and 
to God. And let me beg of you, before I proceed further, to 



288 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

construe nothing I shall say as being disrespectful to this 
assembly. I have no such feeling: far from it. And if I do 
not act or speak according to their wishes at all times, it is 
because I cannot conscientiously do it. 

Mr. Chairman, I do not admit that it is the business of this 
assembly to decide whether I shall or shall not publish a 
newspaper in this city. I have the right to do it. I know 
that I have the right freely to speak and publish my senti- 
ments, subject only to the laws of the land for the abuse of 
that right. That right was given me by my Maker, and is 
solemnly guaranteed to me by the Constitution of these 
United States and of this State. What I wish to know of 
you is, whether you will protect me in the exercise of that 
right, or whether, as heretofore, I am to be subjected to per- 
sonal indignity and outrage. These resolutions, and the 
measures proposed by them, are spoken of as a compromise 
— a compromise between two parties. Mr. Chairman, this is 
not so. There is but one party here. It is simply a question 
whether the law shall be enforced, or whether the mob shall 
be allowed to continue to trample it under their feet, as they 
now do, by violating with impunity the rights of an inno- 
cent man. 

Mr. Chairman, what have I to compromise ? If freely to 
forgive those who have so greatly injured me, if to pray for 
their temporal and eternal happiness, if still to wish for the 
prosperity of your city and State, notwithstanding all the in- 
dignities I have suffered in it ; — if this be the compromise 
intended, then do I willingly make it. 

But if by a compromise is meant that I should cease from 
doing that which duty requires of me, I cannot make it. 
And the reason is, that I fear God more than I fear man. 
Think not that I would lightly go contrary to public senti- 
ment around me. The good opinion of my fellow men is 
dear to me, and I would sacrifice anything but principle to 
obtain their good wishes ; but when they ask me to 
surrender this, they ask for more than I can — than I dare 
give. 

It is a very different question, whether I shall voluntarily, 
or at the request of friends, yield up my post, or whether I 
shall forsake it at the demand of a mob. The former I am 
at all times ready to do, when circumstances occur to require 
it, as I will never put my personal wishes or interests in 
competition with the cause of that Master whose minister I 
am. But the latter, be assured, I never will do. God in 
His providence — so say all my brethren, and so I think — has 
devolved upon me the responsibility af maintaining my 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 289 

ground here, and, Mr. Chairman, I am determined to do it ! 
A voice comes to me from Maine, from Massachusetts, from 
Connecticut, from New York, from Pennsylvania; yea, from 
Kentucky, from Mississippi, from Missouri, calling upon me 
in the name of all that is dear in heaven or earth, to stand 
fast ; and by the help of God, I loill stand. I know I am 
but one, and you are many. My strength would avail but 
little against you all. You can crush me, if you will ; but I 
shall die at my post, for I cannot and will not forsake it ! 

II. 

Why should I flee from Alton ? Is not this a free State ? 
When assailed by a mob at St. Louis, I came hither, as to 
the home of freedom and of the laws. The mob has pur- 
sued me here, and why should I retreat again ? Where can 
I be safe, if not here ? Have not I a right to claim the pro- 
tection of the laws ? What more can I have in any other 
place ? Sir, the very act of retreating will embolden the 
mob to follow me wherever I go. No, sir, there is no way 
to escape the mob, but to abandon the path of duty; and 
that, God helping me, I will never do. 

It has been said here, that my hand is against every man, 
and every man's hand against me. The last part of the de- 
claration is too painfully true. I do indeed find almost every 
hand lifted against me ; but against whom in this place has 
my hand been raised ? I appeal to every individual present; 
whom of you have I injured ? Whose character have I 
traduced ? Whose family have I molested ? Whose busi- 
ness have I meddled with ? If any, let him rise here and 
testify against me. — No one answers. 

Do not your resolutions say that you find nothing against 
my private or personal character ? And does any one believe 
that if there were anything to be found, it would not be found 
and brought forth ? If in anything I have offended against 
the law, I am not so popular in this community as that it 
would be difficult to convict me. You have judges, courts, 
and juries; they find nothing against me. And now you 
come together for the purpose _of driving out a confessedly 
innocent man, for no cause but that he dares to think and 
speak as his conscience and his God dictate. Will conduct like 
this stand the scrutiny of your country, of posterity, — ■ 
above all, of the judgment-day? For remember, the 
Judge of that day is no respecter of persons. Pause, I be- 
seech you, and reflect. The present excitement will soon be 
over ; the voice of conscience will at last be heard. And in 



290 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

some season of honest thought, even in this world, as you re- 
view the scenes of this hour, you will be compelled to say, 
" He was right, he was right.'* 

But you have been exhorted to be lenient and compassionate, 
and in driving me away, to affix no unnecessary disgrace upon 
me. Sir, I reject all such compassion. You cannot disgrace me. 
Scandal and falsehood and calumny have already done their 
worst. My shoulders have borne the burthen till it sits easy 
upon them. You may hang me up as the mob hung up the 
martyrs of Vicksburg ! you may burn me at the stake, as 
they did Mcintosh at St. Louis ; or you may tar and feather 
me, or throw me into the Mississippi, as you have often 
threatened to do ; but you cannot disgrace me. I, and I 
only, can disgrace myself; and the deepest of all disgrace 
would be, at a time like this, to deny my Master, by forsak- 
ing His cause. 

Again, you have been told that I have a family, who are 
dependent on me ; and this has been given as a reason why 
I should be driven off as gently as possible. It is true, Mr. 
Chairman, I am a husband and a fiither ; and this it is that 
adds the bitterest ingredient to the cup of sorrow I am called 
to drink. Yet I am not unhappy. I have counted the cost, 
and stand prepared freely to offer up my all in the service of 
God. I am commanded to forsake father and mother and 
wife and children for Jesus' sake ; and as his professed dis- 
ciple I stand prepared to do it. The time for fulfilling this 
pledge, in my case, it seems to me has come. Sir, I dare not 
flee away from Alton. Should I attempt it, I should feel 
that the angel of the Lord with his flaming' sword was pur- 
suing me wherever I went. It is because I fear God that I 
am not afraid of all who oppose me in this city. No, sir, 
the contest has commenced here, and here it must be fin- 
ished. Before God and you all, I here pledge myself to con- 
tinue it, if need be, till death. If I fall, my grave shall be 
made in Alton. Elijah P. Lovejoy, 1837. 



ON THE MOBBING AND MUBDER OF L0VEJ0Y. 

I. 

An American citizen murdered, a home desolated, a wife 
widowed, a child made fatherless — these, citizens of Alton, 
are recollections which will not fade with the fading excite- 
ments of the hour. From these you can never flee j no bars 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTEACTS. 291 

can protect, no concealments hide you from them, no flight 
can leave them behind ; they are become a part of your own 
souls. The dreadful truth that you are murderers will fol- 
low you through all your future existence : in whatever 
scenes you may mingle, beneath whatever sky you may re- 
pose, the grisly accuser will dog you. Though you essay to 
drown its voice in the madness of intoxication, or in the ex- 
citements of deeper and still deeper crime, — vain will be the 
attempt ; it will await you in the grave. Yea, in the last 
great congregation the gory phantom will start forth, and 
arraign you at the bar of eternal justice. Much do I mis- 
judge if the hours do not frequently come, when you would 
gladly hide yourselves in the grave, were it not that secret 
" dread of something after death," which God has left as his 
witness and prophet in the souls of the guiltiest, will warn 
you that the tortures you experience are but the faint and 
shadowy earnest of a immortal remorse. 

And what have you gained by all this dreadful and guilty 
self-sacrifice ? Whatever may have been the faults of your 
victim, you have embalmed and canonized them. Whatever 
may have been the defects of his cause or of his advocacy 
of it, you have done much, by your mad act, to identify that 
cause with that of freedom of speech and American liberty, 
and you have given its advocate rank among the apostles of 
humanity and martyrs to the rights of man ; among the 
Vanes and Sydneys of other times you have ensured his 
name a record.while the traducer and the murderer are forgot- 
ten in the grave. Instead of checking the cause for which 
he labored, you have made the sympathies of this whole na- 
tion react upon you like an earthquake. You have virtually 
surrendered the field of argument, by a resort to force ; you 
have made the name of the object of your hate worth more 
to him and his cause than a hundred years of life. You 
cannot bury his shed blood in the earth : — it will have voice 
— it will plead louder than a thousand presses. From its 
every drop will spring an army of living antagonists. Did 
you dream that in this age you could muzzle free discussion? 
You might as well attempt to muzzle Etna. Did you hope 
to chain liberty of speech ? You might as well lay grasp 
upon Niagara. Did you think to oppose yourselves to the 
progress of free opinion ? You might as well throw your- 
selves across the path of the lightning or the whirlwind. The 
nation or conspiracy of nations that opposes itself to the 
course of free inquiry opposes itself to the Providence of 
God and the destiny of the race, and might as well think to 
suspend the laws of nature, or stay the earth in her orbit. 



292 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Bnt that yon, at the head of a drunken and swinish mob, 
with the force of an ignorant and brutish rabble, should 
hope to withstand the onward march of opinion, would pro- 
voke only contempt, did not the atrociousness of the at- 
tempt entitle it to indignation. It emulates only the saga- 
city of the animal that sometimes takes its stand upon the 
railroad track, and challenges battle with the locomotive. 8 
In reflecting upon your infamous course, you have not 
even the poor satisfaction of successful villany. Unhappy, 
infatuated men ! whose only safety lies in the dissolution of 
social order, the corruption of public sentiment, and the ruin 
of your country ; or who, should the promptings of reviving 
virtue and patriotism be ever again felt, must find your 
highest duty, and the sole act of magnanimity and patriotism 
left you— an ignominious death. Nevertheless, to that duty 
and that act, I must commend you. Surrender yourselves 
to the justice of your country. Atone for your great 
■wickedness by furnishing to your country the sole use of 
which you are Jonger susceptible, a practical and fearful 
warning. Commending you to this, and to deep repentance 
before that Power which can pardon the penitent and still 
maintain the majesty of law, I take my leave of you in com- 
miseration and sorrow. 

II. 

Citizens of Alton ! If in any respect I may seem to 
have put myself in the unamiable and most undesirable atti- 
tude of a public accuser, it is that I may stimulate to sober 
inquiry into the causes of past outrages, and the means of 
future prevention. This means, melancholy experience de- 
monstrates, is to be found only in the firm, fearless, impar- 
tial and universal maintenance of law. Abolition is not the 
last of unpopular doctrines ; nor do we know who or what next 
may become obnoxious to popular odium. Nothing less 
than the stern enforcement of the law, irrespective of persons, or 
opinions, or circumstances, will prevent persecution, proscrip- 
tion and murder without end. Its enforcement implies in- 
fliction of penalties, as well as promulgation of commands, 
and involves in your case a melancholy duty with reference 
to the past. The laws have been repeatedly, openly and 
flagrantly violated among you ; a public, premeditated, atro- 
cious murder has been perpetrated. The course you may 
take with the offenders will settle the question in the eye of 
mankind, whether you have moral energy and political virtue 
enough remaining, to retrieve your disgrace, and recover 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 293 

your lost position. God forbid that I should cherish to- 
wards the unhappy wretches implicated, any other than 
feelings of Christian kindness and a desire for their repent- 
ance. God forbid that revenge should claim a bloody obla- 
tion for the shade of the murdered Lovejoy. Vengeance 
belongs to another hour, and a mightier hand. But the 
spirit of slain justice does walk your streets, aoji clamor for 
expiation. Until that be given, no charm can lay her un- 
quiet shade. She will wander up and down your city, she 
will whisper you in the darkness of the night, her sorrowing 
tones will steal upon the solitude of your repose and her 
gory apparition will affright your slumbers. Ages to come, 
her moan will resound among your .cliffs, and rise upon the 
roar of the Mississippi. Unless atonement be made to vio- 
lated law, order and security can- never be restored among 
you : — not, at least, until a generation unstained by this trans- 
action have taken your places, and the offenders are beyond 
the reach of human justice. 

Anonymous Letter to the Citizens of Alton, 1837. 



THE DEATH OF O'CONNELL. 

There is sad news from Genoa. An aged and weary pil- 
grim, who can travel no further, passes beneath the gate of 
one of her ancient palaces, saying with pious resignation as 
he enters its silent chambers, " Well, it is God's will that I 
shall never see Rome. I am disappointed. But I am ready 
to die. It is all right." The superb though fading queen 
of the Mediterranean holds anxious watch, through ten long 
days, over that majestic stranger's wasting frame. And now 
death is there — the Liberator of Ireland has sunk to rest in 
the cradle of Columbus. Coincidence beautiful and most 
sublime ! It was the very day set apart by the elder 
daughter of the Church for prayer and sacrifice throughout 
the world, for the children of the sacred island, perishing by 
famine and pestilence, in their home^ and in their native 
fields, and on their crowded paths of exile, on the sea and 
in the havens, and on the lakes, and along the rivers of this 
far distant land. The chimes rung out by pity for his coun- 
trymen were O'Connell's. fitting knell; his soul went forth 
on clouds of incense that rose from altars of Christian 
charity ; and the mournful anthems which recited the faith, 
and the virtue, and the endurance of Ireland, were his be- 
coming requiem. It is a holy sight to see the obsequies of 



294. THE PATKIOTTC SPEAKER. 

a soldier, not only of civil liberty, but of the liberty of con- 
science — of a soldier, not only of freedom, but of the Cross 
of Christ — of a benefactor, not merely of a race of people, 
but of mankind. The vault lighted by suspended worlds is 
the temple within which the great solemnities are celebrated. 
The nations of the earth are mourners ; and the spirits of 
the just mad^Derfect, descending from their golden thrones 
on high, break forth into songs. Behold now a nation 
which needed not to speak its melancholy precedence. The 
lament of Ireland comes forth from palaces deserted, and 
from shrines restored ; from Boyne's dark water, witness of 
the desolation, and from Tara's lofty hill, ever echoing her 
renown. But louder and deeper yet that wailing comes 
from the lonely huts on mountain and on moor, where the 
people of the greenest islands of the seas are expiring: in the 
midst of insufficient though world-wide charities. Well in- 
deed may they deplore O'Connell, for they were his children; 
and he bore them 

" A love so vehement, so strong, so pnre, 
That neither age conld change nor art could cure !" 

William H. Seward. 



DEFENCE OP SMITH O'BRIEN. 

Mr. Smith O'Brien, my client, now stands at the bar of 
his country to answer for having meant to subvert the con- 
stitution which in heart he adores. His true offence is, that 
he courted for you what is England's glory, and blessing, 
and pride. Deeply he may have erred in pursuit of this 
daring object ; will you avenge his misdirected patriotism by 
a dreadful death ? You may do so ; and no earthly induce- 
ment will tempt me to say, if you pronounce the awful sen- 
tence of guilty, that you have not given the verdict con- 
science commanded. If his countrymen condemn him, he 
will be ready to meet his fate with the faith of a Christian, 
and with the firmness of a man. The last accents of his 
lips will breathe a prayer for Ireland's happiness, Ireland's 
constitutional freedom. The dread moment that shall pre- 
cede his mortal agonies will be consoled, if through his suf- 
ferings and his sacrifice some system of government shall 
arise — which I aver has never existed — just, comprehensive, 
impartial, and, above all, consistent, which may conduct to 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 295 

wealth, prosperity, and greatness the country he has loved, 
not wisely, perhaps, but too well. In no pitiful strains do I 
seek compassion for my client, even in a case of blood. I 
ask it solemnly, in the spirit of our free constitution, in ac- 
cordance with the rooted principles of our common law. 
This is a cause between the subject and the crown, wherein 
these great principles might shine out in glorious perfection. 
A verdict of acquittal, in accordance with this divine doc- 
trine, will not be a triumph over the law. When the sover- 
eign seals, by her coronation oath, the great compact be- 
tween the people and the crown, she swears to execute, in 
all her judgments, justice in mercy. That same justice you 
administer ; no rigorous, remorseless, sanguinary code, but 
justice in mercy. In nothing, though at an immeasurable 
distance still, do men on earth so nearly approach the attri- 
bute of the Almighty as in the administrations of justice 
tempered with mercy, or dismal would be our fate. As you 
hope for mercy from the Great Judge, grant it this clay ! 
The awful issues of life and death are in your hands ; do 
justice in mercy ! The last faint murmur on your quivering 
lips will be for mercy, ere the immortal spirit shall wing 
its flight to, I trust, a better and brighter world ! 

Whiteside. 



VINDICATION FEOM TREASON. 

My Lords, — It is my intention to say a few words only. 
I desire that the last act of a proceeding which has occu- 
pied so much of the public time should be of short duration. 
Nor have I the indelicate wish to close the dreary ceremony 
of a state prosecution with a vain display of words. Did I 
fear that hereafter, when I shall be no more, the country I 
have tried to serve would think ill of me, I might indeed 
avail myself of this solemn moment to vindicate my senti- 
ments and my conduct. But I have no such fear. In speak- 
ing thus, accuse me not, my lords, of an indecorous pre- 
sumption. To the efforts I have made in a just and a 
noble cause, I ascribe no vain importance ; nor do I claim for 
those efforts any high reward. But it so happens, and it 
will ever happen so, that they who have tried to serve their 
country, no matter how weak the effort may have been, are 
sure to receive the thanks and blessings of its people. 
With my country, then, I leave my memory, my sentiments, 
my acts — proudly feeling that they require no vindication 



296 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

from me this day. A jury of my countrymen, it is true, have 
found me guilty of the crime of which I stood indicted. For 
this I entertain not the slightest feeling of resentment towards 
them ; influenced by the charge of the Lord Chief Justice 
they could have found no other verdict. What of the 
charge ? Any strong observation on it, T feel sincerely, 
would ill befit the solemnity of this scene ; but I would ear- 
nestly beseech of you, my lord, you who preside on that 
bench, when the passions and the prejudices of this hour have 
passed away, to appeal to your own conscience; and ask of 
it : Was your charge as it ought to be — impartial and indif- 
ferent between the subject and the crown ? My lords, you 
may deem this language unbecoming in me, and perhaps it 
may seal my fate ; but I am here to speak the truth, what- 
ever it may cost. I am here to regret nothing I have ever 
done, — to retract nothing I have ever said. I am here to 
crave with no lying lip the life I consecrate to the liberty of 
my country. Far from it. Even here; here where the thief, 
the libertine, the murderer, have left their foot-prints in the 
dust ; here, on this spot, where the shadows of death surround 
me, and from which I see my early grave, in an unanointed 
soil, opened to receive me ; even here, encircled by these 
terrors, the hope which has beckoned me to the perilous sea 
upon which I liave been wrecked, still consoles, animates, 
enraptures me. 

II. 

'No ; I do not despair of my poor old country, her peace, 
her liberty, her glory. For that country I can do no more 
than bid her hope. To lift this island up ; to make her a 
benefactor, instead of being the meanest beggar in the world ; 
to restore to her her native powers and her ancient constitu- 
tion ; this has been my ambition, and this ambition has been 
my crime. Judged by the law of England, I know this 
crime entails the penalty of death, but the history of Ireland 
explains this crime, and justifies it. Judged by that history 
I am no criminal ; you are no criminal ; I deserve no punish- 
ment ; we deserve no punishment. Judged by that history, 
the treason of which I stand convicted loses all its guilt ; is 
sanctified as a duty ; will be ennobled as a sacrifice. With 
these sentiments, my lord, I await the sentence of the court; 
having done what I felt to be my duty ; having spoken what 
I felt to be the truth, as I have done on every other occasion 
of my short career. I now bid farewell to the country of 
my birth, my passion and my death ; the country whose mis- 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. , 297 

fortunes have invoked my sympathies, whose factions I have 
sought to still ; whose intellect I have prompted to a lofty 
aim ; whose freedom has been my fatal dream. I offer to 
that country, as a proof of the love I bear her, and the sin- 
cerity with which I thought and spoke and struggled for her 
freedom, the life cf a young heart ; and with that life all the 
hopes, the honors, the endearments of an honorable home. 
Pronounce then, my lords, the sentence which the law directs, 
and I will be prepared to hear it. I trust I shall be prepared 
to meet its execution. I hope to be able, with a pure heart 
and a perfect composure, to appear before a higher tribunal — 
a tribunal where a judge of infinite goodness, as well as of 
justice, will preside, and where, my lords, many, many of the 
judgments of this world will be reversed. — T. F. Meagher. 



THE MISERIES OF WAR. 

The stoutest heart in this assembly would recoil were he, 
who owns it, to behold the destruction of a single individual 
by some deed of violence. Were the man who, at this mo- 
ment, stands before you, in the full play and energy of health, 
to be, in another moment, laid, by some deadly aim, a lifeless 
corpse at your feet, there is not one of you who would not 
prove how strong are the relen tings of nature at a spectacle 
so hideous as death. There are some of you who would be 
haunted for whole days by the image of horror you had wit- 
nessed ; who would feel the weight of a most oppressive 
sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time could 
wear away ; who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit 
for business or for enjoyment ; who would think of it through 
the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your 
waking moments ; who would dream of it at night, and it 
would turn that bed, which you courted as a retreat from 
the torments of an. ever-meddling memory, into a scene of 
restlessness. Oh, tell me, if .there be any relentings of pity 
in your bosom, how could you endure it. to behold the 
agonies of the (lying man, as, goaded by pain, he grasps the 
cold ground in convulsive energy; or, faint with the loss of 
blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads 
itself over his countenance ; or, wrapping himself round in 
despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that 
life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body ; or, lifting 
up a faded eye he casts on you a look of imploring helpless- 
ness for that succor which no sympathy can yield him ? It 



298 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

may be painful to dwell thus, in imagination, on the dis- 
tressing picture of one individual, but multiply it ten thou- 
sand times ; say how much of all this distress has been heaped 
together on a single field ; give us the arithmetic of this 
accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us, with all the 
accuracy of an official computation, and, strange to tell, not 
one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as 
they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance 
which is read to them out of the registers of death. Oh ! 
say, what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the suf- 
fering of our brethren ; which deafens to our ear the voice 
of bleeding humanity when it is aggravated by the shriek of 
dying thousands ; which makes the very magnitude of the 
slaughter throw a softening disguise over its cruelties and 
its horrors ; which causes us to eye, with indifference, the 
field that is crowded with the most revolting abominations, 
and arrests that sigh which each individual would, singly, 
have drawn from us by the report of the many who have 
fallen and breathed their last in agony along with him. 

Chalmers. 



FALSE COLORING LENT TO WAR. 

On every side of me I see causes at work which go to 
spread a most delusive coloring over war, and to remove its 
shocking barbarities to the background of our contemplations 
altogether. I see it in the history which tells me of the 
superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their 
successive charges. I see it in the poetry which lends the 
magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and trans- 
ports its many admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and 
its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous em- 
bellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in 
the music which represents the progress of the battle ; and 
when, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes of prepara- 
tion, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing-room are 
seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment; nor do I 
hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the death- 
tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded 
men, as they fade away upon the ear, and sink into lifeless 
silence. 

All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted crea- 
tures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been 
seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness ; 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 299 

and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian 
sentiment upon earth to arrest the strong current of the pop- 
ular and prevailing partiality for war. Then only will an 
imperious sense of duty lay the check of severe principle on 
all the subordinate tastes and faculties of our nature. Then 
will glory be reduced to its right estimate, and the wakeful 
benevolence of the Gospel, chasing away every spell, will be 
turned by the treachery of no delusion whatever from its 
simple but sublime enterprises for the good of the species. 
^Then the reign of truth and quietness will be ushered into 
the world, and war — cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war — will 
be stripped of its many and its bewildering fascinations. 

Chalmers. 



SECTARIAN LEGISLATION. 

I feel far less anger than I feel sorrow at the coarse in- 
vectives directed against the Catholic religion, and entertain 
emotions not unallied to pity towards those who are suffi- 
ciently fanatical to indulge in them ; let me be permitted to 
add that the man who denounces the Catholic religion as an 
idolatry, incurs the frightful hazard of teaching other men to 
inquire whether the Christian religion itself is not a fable. 
But, even supposing the Catholic religion to be a tissue of 
errors, it is clear that you cannot convert us by abusing us. 
The Catholic church in Ireland is "an accomplished fact ;" 
you cannot get rid of it. 3*ou cannot uproot it ; but you 
may give a useful direction to its branches ; and, if I may so 
say, by training them along the legalized institutions of the 
country, make it productive of what you yourselves would 
be disposed to acknowledge to be useful fruit. You must 
take Ireland as it is, and you must adapt your policy to the 
condition of the people, and not to your own peculiar relig- 
ious feelings. A statesman 1 has no right to found his legis- 
lation upon his theology ; and the policy by which Ireland 
should be governed is entirely different from that which the 
antagonists of Maynooth* recommend to the adoption of the 
first minister of the crown. What is the policy worthy of 
the man by whom the great office of prime minister is held, 
in this the greatest country in the world ? In the very posi- 
tion which he occupies an answer to that question is to be 
found. How great is the height to which the chief minister 

* The Catholic college of Maynooth. 



300 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

of England is exalted! From that height nothing little 
should be discernible. Everything diminutive should vanish. 
Nothing but the large, the lofty, and the noble should be 
seen. — When from that surpassing elevation, whence the 
British empire is disclosed to him, he turns his eyes to the 
island which is immediately contiguous to your own, what 
should he behold ? Not, most assuredly, the church or the 
chapel, or the conventicle — not a miserable arena for scho- 
lastic controversy— -not an appropriate field in which the. 
Protestant and the Catholic, and the Calvinist should engage 
in a theological conflict, and trample upon every precept of 
the Gospel, in their fierce and anti-Christian encounter. Shall 
I venture to tell you what he should behold — what Bacon, — 
what Spenser and Bacon beheld more than two centuries be- 
fore him — what Pitt, and Burke, and Fox beheld in later 
times — one of the finest islands in the ocean, peopled by mil- 
lions of men, bold and brave and chivalrous — whose very 
imperfections are akin to virtue, and who are capable of the 
noblest amelioration — an island blessed with a fortunate cli- 
mate, a soil inexhaustibly fertile, a point of contact between 
the Old World and the New — an island to which Providence 
has been lavish in its bounty, and from the development of 
whose incalculable resources an incalculable benefit might be 
conferred upon the empire ; and by the statesmen by whom 
that great work shall be accomplished an imperishable fame 
shall be obtained. And if such be the spectacle which Ire- 
land presents to his contemplation — in the contemplation of 
such a spectacle, what emotions should he experience, what 
desires should he derive from ft, and with what aspirations 
should his heart be lifted up ? Should he think — should he 
for one moment give himself leave to think — of making such 
a country subservient to the indulgence of any sectarian pre- 
judice, or of any religious predilection ? To assert the pur- 
poses of Providence, — to carry out the designs of which, 
wherever we turn our eyes, we behold the magnificent mani- 
festations — to repair the mistake of centuries — to pour balm 
into a nation".-; heart — to efface pernicious recollections — to 
awaken salubrious hopes — to banish a splendid phantom — to 
substitute a glorious and attainable reality — to induce Eng- 
land to do justice to Ireland, and to make Ireland appreciate 
the justice of England, and thus to give an everlasting stabil- 
ity to this great and majestic empire — these are the oljects 
to which a man should direct his whole heart and his entire 
soul, who feels conscious of the sacred trust reposed in him 
by his sovereign, and that God has given him the high capa- 
city to fulfil it. — Richard L. 8/ieil, 1 845. 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 301 



POST-OFFICE ESPIONAGE.* 

I have risen in order to move the resolution of which I 
gave notice before the Easter recess. I submit it in the fol- 
lowing terms : 

" JResolved, That this house has learned with regret, that 
with a view to the prevention of a "political movement in 
Italy, and more especially in the Papal States, the letters of 
a foreigner, which had no relation to the maintenance of the 
internal tranquillity of the United Kingdom, should have 
been opened under a warrant, bearing date the 1st of March, 
and cancelled on the 3d of June, 1844, and that the informa- 
tion obtained by such means should have been communicated 
to a foreign power." 

The Secretary for the Home Department signed a warrant 
on the 1st of March for the opening of Mazzini's letters. 
We are told that the information deduced from the letters 
was communicated to a foreign power, but did not implicate 
any person within the reach of that foreign power. But be 
this as it may, there are two facts beyond doubt ; first, that 
the Italian newspapers boasted that Mazzini was under the 
peculiar surveillance of the English police ; and, secondly, 
that six weeks after the letters were opened six men were 
put to death for political offences at Bologna. At any rate, 
it is certain, that for three months Mazzini's letters were 
opened, and folded again, and re-sealed, and delivered to 
him just as if nothing at all had happened. 

I ask, what is the palliation for this proceeding ? I will 
give it from the answer given by the prime minister to a 
question put by the member for Pontefract. Your extenua- 
tion is this : not that the inhabitants of Romagna have not 
monstrous grievances to complain of — no such thing; but 
this — if there be an outbreak in Romagna, the Austrian 
army will march into the Papal States ; it" the Austrian army 
march into the Papal States the French will send troops to 
Ancona ; if the French send troops to Ancona there may be 
a collision ; if there be a collision there may be a war between 
Austria and France ; if there be a war between Austria and* 
France there may b,e a general continental war ; if there be 
a continental war England may be involved in it ; and, there- 
fore, but not at the desire of Lord Aberdeen, you opened 

* Speech in the House of Commons, April 1, 1845, on moving- a 
resolution regarding the letters of Joseph Mazzini, which had been 
opened by the warrant of Sir James Graham, one of her Majesty's 
Secretaries of State. 



302 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Mazzini's letters, and acted on the most approved principles 
of continental espionage. The word is strong ; is it inap- 
propriate ? If you had employed a spy in the house of Maz-' 
zini, and had every word uttered in his convivial hours; at, 
his table, or even at his bed-side, reported to you, that would 
be espionage. Between that case of hypothetical debasement 
and what has actually befallen, the best casuist in an Italian 
university could never distinguish. Are we, in order to avoid 
the hazards of war, to do that which is in the last degree 
discreditable? You would not, in order to avoid the cer- 
tainty of war, submit to dishonor. When an Englishman 
was wronged in a remote island in the Pacific, you announced 

that the insult should be repaired, or else ; and if you 

were prepared, in that instance, to incur the certainty of war, 
and to rush into an encounter, the shock of which would 
have shaken the world, should you, to avoid the hazards of 
war, founded on a series of suppositions, perpetuate an act 
of self-degradation ? There are incidents to this case which 
afford a warrant for that strong expression. If you had sent 
for Mazzini ; if you had told him that you knew what he 
was about ; if you had informed him that you were reading 
his letters, the offence would not have been s6 grievous ; 
but his letters were closed again, with an ignominious dex- 
terity they were re-folded, and they were re-sealed, and it is 
not an exaggeration to say that the honor of this country 
was tarnished by every drop of that molten wax with which 
an untruth was impressed upon them. 

I have not entered, and I will not enter, into any legal dis- 
quisitions ; it is to the policy, the dignity, the truthfulness 
of this transaction that my resolution is directed. It will, no 
doubt, be said that the committee — men of great worth and 
high integrity, and singular discrimination — have reported 
in favor of the government. I admit their worth, their in- 
tegrity and their discrimination, but I deny that they have 
reported in your favor. They avoid, cautiously avoid, find- 
ing a justification, giving an approval of your conduct. They 
say that they see no reason to doubt the goodness of your 
motives. Your motives ! There is an aphorism touching 
good intentions to which it were a deviation from good 
breeding too distinctly to refer ; but it is not for your good 
intentions that you were made a minister by the Queen, or 
that you are retained as a minister by the House of Com- 
mons. The question is not whether your intentions are good 
or bad, but whether you have acted as became the great 
position of an English minister, named by an English sove- 
reign, and administering a great trust for the high-minded 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 303 

English people. I think that yon have not ; and it is because 
I think so that I propose a resolution, in which I have set 
down facts beyond doubt and beyond dispute, and with facts 
beyond doubt and beyond dispute I have associated an 
expression of sorrow in which I trust this House will partici- 
pate. — Richard L. Shell, 1845. 



THE VOTE BY BALLOT. 

When the ballot is in question certain gentlemen exclaim, 
" Good heavens ! shall we introduce into England a system 
of voting, by which duplicity and dissimulation, and all the 
base results that follow from them, shall be propagated 
amongst us ?" I acknowledge the ballot has its evils, but 
great as these evils may be, they are more than countervailed 
by the abuses which are incident to our existing system. 

Turn to the mournful realities which are offered to you 
in the land from which I come, and look at the £10 voter, 
who has had the misfortune to pass through the registration 
court, and who receives from his landlord a summons to 
attend the hustings, and, in a contest between a Liberal and 
a Tory candidate,^to give his vote. On one side, all his feel- 
ings, (feelings like your own,) all his national predilections, 
all his religious emotions, all his personal affections are en- 
listed. Perhaps, on one side, he sees a man whom he has long 
been accustomed to regard as the deliverer of his country ; 
whom he looks upon as the champion of his creed and of 
his priesthood ; of the land in which he was born, and for 
which, if there were need, he w^ould be prompt to die ; his 
eye fills and his heart grows big, and prayers break from his 
lips as he beholds him. On the other side — the side on which 
he is called upon to vote — he beholds some champion of 
that stern ascendency, by wdiich his country had long been 
trodden under foot ; by whom his religion had long been 
vilified ; its ministers had long been covered with opprobrium, 
and the class to which he belongs treated with contumely 
and disdain. For such a man he is called upon, under a pen- 
alty the most fearful, with impending ruin, to give his false 
and miserable suffrage. Trembling, shrinking, cowering, 
afraid to look his friends and kinsmen in the face, he ascends 
the hustings as if it w T as the scaffold of his conscience, and, 
with a voice almost inarticulate with emotion, stammers out, 
when asked for whom he votes — not the name of him who 
he loves and prizes, and honors — but of the man whom he 



304 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

detests, loathes, abhors. For him it is, it is in his favor,, that 
he exercises the great trust, the sanctity of which requires 
that it should be exercised in the face of the world ; for him 
it is, it is in his favor, that he gives utterance to that which, 
to all intents and purposes, is a rank and odious falsehood. 
But perhaps he resists; perhaps, under the influence of some 
sentiment, half religious, half heroic, looking martydom in 
the face, he revolts against the. horrible tyranny that you' 
would rivet on him, and he votes, wretch that he is, in con- 
formity with the dictates of his conscience, and what he be- 
lieves to be the ordinance of his religion. Alas, for him ! a 
month or two go by, and all that he has in the world is 
seized ; the beast that gives him milk, the horse that drags 
his plough, the table of his scanty meal, the bed where an- 
guish and poverty and oppression were sometimes forgotten ; 
all, all are taken from him, and with Providence for his guide, 
but with God, I hope, for his avenger, he goes forth, with 
his wife and children, upon the world. 

And this, this is the system which you are prepared to 
maintain ! This is the system under which what is called a 
great trust is performed, in the eyes of the country. This is 
the system under which, by the exercise of the great preroga- 
tive of freemen, open and undisguised, every British citizen 
invested with the franchise should feel himself exalted ! Oh, 
fie upon this mockery! — JR. L. Shield 1843: 






AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF THE INCOME TAX TO IEELAND, 

Sir, my honorable friend is determined to give us, in the 
form of an income tax, the benefit of British institutions — a 
benefit analogous to that which we derive from the English 
church. I warn him not to attempt to extort from Ireland a 
revenue which she cannot afford, and which we ought not to 
be compelled to pay. No minister by whom an income tax 
has yet been proposed ever thought it possible to extend it to 
Ireland. The imposition of such a tax upon Ireland would 
be unjust ; and what is unfortunately of still more importance 
in the estimate of public men, would be in the last degree 
impolitic and unsafe. 

Before the Union Ireland had a surplus revenue expended 
in Ireland, and the country flourished. You induced us to 
enter with you into a ruinous co-partnership, of which you 
have had all the profits, while we have deeply participated 
in the loss. The impolicy of England plunged her into 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTKACTS. 305 

debt, of whose load we are compelled to bear a part ; had we 
remained in the enjoyment of our legislative independence, 
of your ruinous expenditure we should not be .the victims. 
It is most unfair thai you should now call on us, after all the 
detriment which we have already suffered, to bear a portion 
of the vast cost incidental to this experiment. You drain us 
through the absentee system — an inevitable attendant on the 
Union — of millions of money, which, instead of circulating 
through Ireland, swell the overflowings of the deep and broad 
Pactolus of British opulence. You have transferred all our 
public establishments to this single point of imperial centrali- 
zation ; the revenue which Ireland yields is expended, not in 
Ireland, but here. Do not then, for the sake of a small ac- 
cession to the revenue, do us an injustice, and a signal detri- 
ment to yourselves. There are other means of obtaining a 
revenue from Ireland besides an income tax. There is an al- 
chemy in good government. By doing perfect justice you 
can largely save, and saving is equivalent to gain. Justice is 
a good housewife. My honorable and frugal friend, the 
member for Montrose, has often told you that you can, by 
adopting a sound policy in Ireland, effect a great reduction, 
and reduce your army to a force comparatively small. He 
has often said, that as in Scotland 2,000 men are quite suf- 
ficient, the army of Ireland might be reduced in the same 
proportion. If you will but endeavor to adapt your institu- 
tions to Ireland, instead of laboring to adapt Ireland to your 
institutions, if, instead of inflicting a temporary tranquillity, 
you confer a perpetual peace, you will obtain from Ireland a 
revenue far exceeding anything which, by the torture of this 
inquisitorial imposition, it would be possible for you to ob- 
tain. Peace, true peace — peace founded upon justice, and 
equality and national contentment, has an enriching, as well 
as a civilizing and ameliorating, attribute. Peace will pay 
you large import duties — peace will consume in abundance 
sugar, and coffee, and tea, and every article on which a 
charge will remain — peace will draw from the earth twice its 
ordinary return, and while it shall give you more food, will 
take more of your manufactures in return — peace will enlarge 
and give security to that market which is already the best 
you possess — peace will open a wider field to your laborious 
industry and your commercial enterprise; and for every ben- 
efit you confer upon us, for every indulgence you shall show 
us, for every gift you bestow, with an usury incalculably 
profitable, by peace you will be repaid. — R. L. Shell, 1845. 



306 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



IEISH INSURRECTION. 



Sir, these topics are perilous ; but I do not fear to touch 
them. It is my thorough conviction, that England would be 
able to put down any insurrectionary movement, with her 
gigantic force, even although maddened and frantic Ireland 
might be aided by calculating France. But at what a terri- 
ble cost of treasure and of life would treason be subdued ! 
Well might the Duke of Wellington, although familiar with 
fields of death, express his horror at the contemplation of 
civil war. War in Ireland would be worse than civil. A 
demon would take possession of the nation's heart — every 
feeling of humanity would be extinguished — neither to sex 
nor to age would mercy be given. The country would be 
deluged with blood, and when that deluge had subsided, it 
would be a sorry consolation to a British statesman, when he 
gazed upon the spectacle of desolation which Ireland would 
then present to him, that he beheld the spires of your Es- 
tablished Church still standing secure amidst the desert with 
which they would be encompassed. You have adjured us, in 
the name of the oath which we have sworn on the 
gospel of God — I adjure you, in the name of every 
precept contained in that holy book— in the name of 
that religion which is the perfection of humanity — in 
the name of every obligation, divine and human, as you 
are men and Christians, to save my country from those 
evils to which I point, and to remember, that if you shall 
be the means of precipitating that country into perdition, 
posterity will deliver its great finding against you, and that 
you will not only be answerable to posterity, but responsible 
to that Judge, in whose presence, clothed with the blood of 
civil warfare, it will be more than dreadful to appear. But 
God forbid that these evils should ever have any other ex- 
istence, except in my own affrighted imaginiugs, and that 
those visions of disaster should be embodied in reality. God 
grant that the men to whom the destinies of England are 
confided by their sovereign, may have the virtue and the 
wisdom to save her from those fearful ills that so darkly and 
so densely lower upon her. For my own part, I do not de- 
spair of my country ; I do not despair of witnessing the time 
when Ireland will cease to be the battle-field of faction ; when 
our mutual acrimonies will be laid aside ; when our fatal an- 
tipathies will be sacrificed to the good genius of our country ; 
and, so far from wishing for a dismemberment of this majestic 
empire, I would offer up a prayer, as fervent as ever passed 



MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 307 

from the heart to the lips of any one of you, that the great- 
ness of that empire maybe imperishable, and that the power, 
and the affluence, and the glory, and above all, the liberties 
of England may endure forever. — M. JL. She'd, 1844. 



AMENDING THE LAWS, 

After a long interval of various fortune, and filled with 
vast events, we are again called to the grand labor of sur- 
veying and amending our laws. For this task, it well be- 
comes us to begird ourselves, as the honest representatives 
of the people. Dispatch and vigor are imperiously demand- 
ed ; but that deliberation, too, must not be lost sight of, 
which so mighty an enterprise requires. When we shall 
have done the work, we may fairly challenge the utmost ap- 
proval of our constituents ; for in none other have they so 
deep a stake. 

In pursuing the course which I now invite you to enter 
upon, I avow that I look for the co-operation of the King's 
Government ; and on what are my hopes founded ? Men 
gather not grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles ; but that 
the vine should no longer yield its wonted fruit — that the 
fig-tree should refuse its natural increase — required a miracle 
to strike it with barrenness. But, whether I have the sup- 
port of the ministers or no, to the House I look, with confi- 
dent expectation, that it will control them, and assist me ; if 
I go too fir, checking my progress ; if I go too fast, abating 
my speed ; but heartily and honestly helping me, in the best 
and greatest work which the hands of the law-giver can un- 
dertake. The course is clear before us ; the race is glorious 
to run. You have the power of sending your name down 
through all times, illustrated by deeds of higher fame and 
more useful import than ever were done within these walls. 
You saw the greatest warrior of the age — conqueror of Italy — 
humbler of Germany — terror of the North — you saw him ac- 
count ail his matchless victories poor, compared with the tri- 
umph which you are now in a condition to win ! — saw him 
contemn the fickleness of Fortune, while, in despite of her, he 
could pronounce his memorable boast — " I shall go down to 
posterity with my code in my hand !" You have vanquished 
him in the field ; strive now to rival him in the sacred arts of 
peace ! Outstrip him as a law-giver, whom, in arms, you 
overcame ! The lustre of the Regency will be eclipsed by 
the more solid and enduring splendor of the Reign. The 



308 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

praise which false courtiers feigned for our Edwards and 
Harrys — the Justinians of their day — will be the just tribute 
of the wise and the good, to that monarch under whose sway 
so mighty an undertaking shall be accomplished. Of a truth, 
sceptres are chiefly to be envied for that they bestow the 
power of thus conquering and ruling. It was the boast of 
Augustus — it formed part of the glare, in which the perfidies* 
of his earlier years were lost — that he found Rome of brick, 
and left it of marble ; a praise not unworthy a great prince, 
and to which the present reign has its claims also. But how 
much nobler will be our sovereign's boast, when he shall have 
it to say, that he found law dear, and left it cheap ; found it 
a sealed b.ook — left it an open letter ; found it the patrimony 
of the rich — left it the inheritance of the poor ; found it the 
two-edged sword of craft and oppression — left it the staff of 
honesty, and the shield of innocence ! To me, much reflect- 
ing on these things, it has always seemed a worthier honor 
to be the instrument of making you bestir yourselves in this 
high matter, than to enjoy all that office can bestow — office, 
of which the patronage would be irksome incumbrance, the 
emoluments superfluous, to one content with the rest of his 
industrious fellow citizens, that his own hands minister to his 
wants ; and as for the power supposed to follow it — I have 
lived nearly half a century, and I have learned that power 
and place may be severed. But one power I do prize — that 
of being the advocate of my countrymen here, and their fel- 
low-laborers elsewhere, in those things which concern the 
best interests of mankind. That power, I know full well, no 
government can give — no change take away ! 

Lord Brougham. 



III. 

POETICAL EXTRACTS 



SOOTT AND THE VETERAN. 

An old and crippled veteran to the War Department came, 
He sought the chief who led him on many a field of fame — 
The chief who shouted " Forward !" where'er his banner rose, 
And bore its stars in triumph behind the flying foes. 

" Have you forgotten, General," the battered soldier cried, 
" The days of Eighteen Hundred Twelve, when I was at your 

side? 
Have you forgotten Johnson, that fought at Lundy's Lane ? 
'Tis true I'm old and pensioned, but I want to fight again." 

" Have I forgotten ?" said the chief; "my brave old soldier, 

¥o! 
And here's the hand I gave you then, and let it tell you so ; 
But you have done your share, my friend ; you're crippled, 

old, and gray, 
And we have need of younger arms and fresher blood to : day." 

" But, General," cried the veteran, a flush upon his brow, 
" The very men who fought with us, they say, are traitors 

now; 
They've torn the flag of Lundy's Lane — our old red, white, 

and blue ; 
And while a drop of blood is left, I'll show that drop is true. 

" I'm not so weak but I can strike, and I've a good old gun 
To get the range of traitors' hearts, and pick them, one by 

one. 
Your Minie rifles, and such arms, it ain't worth while to try ; 
I couldn't get the hang of them, but I'll keep my powder 

dry !" 



310 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

" God bless you, comrade!" said the chief; "God bless your 

loyal heart ! 
But younger men are in the field, and claim to have their 

part ; 
They'll plant our sacred banner in each rebellious town, 
And woe, henceforth, to any hand that dares to pull it 

down !" 

"But, General," — still persisting, the weeping veteran cried, 
"I'm young enough to follow, so long as you're my guide; 
And some, you know, must bite the dust, and that, at least, 

can I; 
So give the young ones place to fight, but me a place to die ! 

" If they should fire on Pickens, let the Colonel in command, 
Put me upon the rampart, with the flag-staff in my hand; 
No odds how hot the cannon smoke, or how the shells may 

I'll hold the Stars and Stripes aloft, and hold them till I die ! 

" I'm ready, General, so you let a post to me be given, 
Where Washington can see me, as he looks from highest 

heaven, 
And say to Putnam at his side, or, may be, General Wayne, 
'There stands old Billy Johnson, that fought at Lundy's 

Lane !' 

"And when the fight is hottest, before the traitors fly, 
When shell and ball are screeching, and bursting in the sky, 
If any shot should hit me, and lay me on my face, 
My soul would go to Washington's and not to Arnold's place !" 

Bayard Taylor. 



DTTLCE PEO PATEIA MOBI. 

Oh ! it is great for our country to die, when ranks are con- 
tending ; 

Bright is the wreath of our fame ; glory awaits us for aye — 
Glory that never is dim, shining on with light never ending — 

Glory that never shall fade, never, O never, away ! 

Oh ! it is sweet for our country to die ! How softly reposes 
Warrior youth on his bier, wet by the tears of his love, 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 311 

"Wet by a mother's warm tears ; they crown him with gar- 
lands of roses, 
Weep, and then joyously turn, bright where he triumphs 
above. 

Not to the shades shall the youth descend who for country 
hath perished ; 
Hebe awaits him in heaven, welcomes him there with her 
smile ; 
There, at the banquet divine, the patriot spirit is cherished ; 
Gods love the young who ascend pure from the funeral pile. 

Not to Elysian fields, by the still, oblivious river ; 

Not to the isles of the blest, over the blue, rolling sea; 
But on Olympian heights shall dwell the devoted forever ; 

There shall assemble the good, there the wise, valiant, 
and free. 

Oh ! then how great for our country to die— in the front rank 
to perish, 
Firm with our breast to the foe, victory's shout in our ear ! 
Long they our statues shall crown, in songs our memory 
cherish ; 
We shall look forth from our heaven, pleased the sweet 
music to hear. — jPercival. 



VERY DARK. 



Our hoys died game. One was ordered to fall in rank. He answered 
quietly, " I will if I can." His arm hung shattered by his side, and he 
was bleeding to death. His last words brought tears to the eyes of all 
around. He murmured, "It grows very dark, mother — very dark." 
Poor fellow, his thoughts were far away at his peaceful home in Ohio. 

Cincinnati Gazette. 

The crimson tide was ebbing, and the pulse grew weak and 

faint, 
But the lips of that brave soldier scorned e'en now to make 

complaint ; 
" Fall in rank !" a voice called to him, — calm and low was his 

reply : 
" Yes, if I can, I'll do it— I will do it, though I die." 
And he murmured, when the life-light had died out to just a 

spark, 
" It is growing very dark, mother — growing very dark." 



312 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

There were tears in manly eyes, then, and manly heads were 

bowed, 
Though the balls flew thick around them, and the cannons 

thundered loud ; 
They gathered round the spot where the dying soldier lay, 
To catch the broken accents he was struggling then to say ; 
And a change came o'er the features where death had set his 

marks, 
" It is growing very dark, mother — very, very dark." 

Far away his mind had wandered, to Ohio's hills and vales, 
Where the loved ones watched and waited with that love 

that never fails ; 
He was with them as in childhood, seated in the cottage 

door, 
Where he watched the evening shadows slowly creeping on 

the floor ; 
Bend down closely, comrades, closely, he is speaking now, 

and hark ! — 
" It is growing very dark, mother — very, very dark." 

He was dreaming of his mother, that her loving hand was 

pressed 
On his brow for one short moment, ere he sank away to rest ; 
That her lips were now imprinting a kiss upon his cheek, 
And a voice he well remembered spoke so soft, and low, and 

meek. 
Her gentle form was near him, her footstep he could mark, 
" But 'tis growing very dark, mother — mother, very dark." 

And the eye that once had kindled, flashing forth with pa- 
triot light, 

Slowly gazing, vainly strove to pierce the gathering gloom 
of night, 

Ah ! poor soldier ! ah ! fond mother ! you are severed now for 
aye, 

Cold and pulseless, there he lies now, where he breathed his 
life away. 

Through this heavy cloud of sorrow shines there not one hea- 
venly spark? 

Ah ! it has grown dark, mother — very, very dark. 

Gather round him, soldiers, gather, fold his hands and close 

his eyes, 
Near another one is dying, "Rally round our flag!" he 

cries j 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 313 

" Heaven protect it — fight on, comrades, speedily avenge our 

death!" 
Then his voice grew low and faltering, slowly came each 

painful breath. 
Two brave forms lay side by side there ; death had loved a 

shining mark, 
And two sad mothers say, " It has grown dark, ah ! very 

dark."— Z. R. 



THE BLACK HORSE aUABD. 

A TALE OF THE BATTLE OP BULL EUN. 

We waited for their coming beside that craggy " run," 
And gaily shone their trappings, and glistened in the sun ; 
"We saw the " well-kept" horses, and marked the stalwart men, 
And each Zouave his rifle took, and tried the charge again. 

On, on they came in close-set ranks. O, 'twas a goodly 

sight ! 
Their horses shone like ebony, their arms were burnished 

bright ; 
A breathless silence ; then there came a ringing down the 

van, 
"Lie low! Remember Ellsworth! let each one pick his 

man." 



A thousand rifle-flashes ; then shrieks and groans of pain, 

And clouds of dust uprising over the fatal plain, 

'Mid which the gleaming bayonets seemed like the lightning's 

flash, 
The cry, "Remember Ellsworth," and the deadly forward 

dash! 

A silence ; — horses riderless, and scouring from the fray, 
While here and there a trooper spurs his worn steed away. 
The smoke dispels — the dust blows off — subsides the fatal 

stir; 
Virginia's Black Horse Cavalry is with the things that 

were. 

A wailing on the sunny slopes along the Shenandoah, 
A weeping where the York and James' deep-rolling torrents 
pour; 



314 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Where Rappahannock peaceful glides, on many a fertile plain, 
A cry of anguish for the loved who ne'er may come again. 

The widow clasps the fatherless in silent, speechless grief, 
Or weeps as if in floods of tears the soul could find relief; 
The Old Dominion weeps, and mourns full many a gallant 

son, 
Who sleeps upon that fatal field beside that craggy run. 

Oh, matrons of Virginia ! with you has been the blame; 
It was for you to bend the twig before its ripeness came ; 
For you a patriot love to form, a loyal mind to nurse ; 
But ye have left your task undone, and now ye feel the curse. 

Edward Sprague Hand, Jr. 



NOT TET. 

Oh, country, marvel of the earth! 

Oh, realm to sudden greatness grown ! 
The age that gloried in thy birth, 

Shall it behold thee overthrown? 
Shall traitors lay that greatness low ? 

No ! Land of Hope and Blessing, No ! 

And we who wear thy glorious name, 
Shall we, like cravens, stand apart, 

When those whom thou hast trusted, aim 
The death-blow at thy generous heart? 

Forth goes the battle-cry, and lo ! 
Hosts rise in harness, shouting, No ! 

And they who founded, in our land, 
The power that rules from sea to sea, 

Bled they in vain, or vainly planned 
To leave their country great and free? 

Their sleeping ashes, from below, 
Send up the thrilling murmur, No ! 

Knit they the gentle ties which long 
These sister States were proud to wear, 

And forged the kindly links so strong, 
For idle hands in sport to tear — 

For scornful hands aside to throw ? 
No ! by our fathers' memory, No ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. ' 315 

Our humming marts, our iron ways, 

Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest, 

The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, 
The calm, broad ocean of the West, 

And Mississippi's torrent flow, 
And loud Niagara, answer, No ! 

Not yet the hour is nigh, when they 

Who deep in Eld's dim twilight sit, 
Earth's ancient kings, shall rise and say, 

"Proud country, welcome to the pit! 
So soon art thou, like us, brought low ?" 

No ! sullen group of shadows, No ! 

For now, behold, the Arm that gave 

The victory in our fathers' day, 
Strong, as of old, to guard and save — 

That mighty Arm which none can stay — 
On clouds above, and fields below, 

Writes, in men's sight, the answer, No ! 

William' Cullen Bryant. 



THE EOMAU TWINS. 

'Twas told by Roman soothsayers, 

What time they read the stars, 
That Romulus and Remus 

Sprang from the loins of Mars : 
That Romulus and Remus 

Were twin-born on the earth, 
And in the lap of a she- wolf 

Were suckled from their birth. 
By Jove ! I think this legend — 

This ancient Roman myth — 
For mine own time, and mine own clime, 

Is full of pregnant pith. 

Romulus stood with Remus, 
And plowed the Latian loam, 

And traced, by yellow Tiber, 
The nascent walls of Rome; 

Then laughed the dark twin, Remus, 
And scoffed his brother's toil, 



316 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

And over the bounds of Romulus 

He leaped upon his soil. 
By Jove! I think that Remus 

And Romulus at bay, 
Of Slavery's strife and Liberty's life, 

Were antetypes that day ! 

The sucklings of the she-wolf 

Stood face to face in wrath, 
And Romulus swept Remus 

Like stubble from his path ; 
Then crested he with temples 

The seven hills of his home, 
And builded there, by Tiber, 

The eternal walls of Rome ! 
By Jove ! I think this legend 

Hath store of pregnant pith ; 
For mine own time and mine own clime ; 

'Tis more than Roman myth ! 

Like Romulus and Remus, 

Out of the loins of Mars, 
Our Slavery and our Liberty 

Were born from cruel wars. 
To both the Albic she-wolf 

Her bloody suck did give, 
And one must slay the other, 

Ere one in peace can live. 
By Jove ! this brave old legend 

Straight to our hearts comes home — 
When Slavery dies, shall grandly rise 

Freedom's Eternal Rome ! 

A. J] IT. Duganne* 



THE WATCHERS, 



Beside a stricken field I stood ; 
On the torn turf, on grass, on wood, 
Hung heavily the dew of blood. 

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain ; 
But all the air was quick with pain, 
And gusty sighs and tearful rain. 



POETICAL EXTEACTS. 317 

Two angels, each with drooping head, 
And folded wings, and noiseless tread, 
"Watched by that valley of the dead. 

The one, with forehead saintly bland, 
And lips of blessing, not command, 
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand. 

The other's brows were scarred and knit ; 
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit, 
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit. 

" How long !" — I know the voice of Peace — 
" Is there no respite ? — no release ? — 
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease ? 

" O Lord, how long ! — One human soul 
Is more than any parchment scroll, 
Or any flag the winds unroll. 

" What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave ? 
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave ? 
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave ? 

" Oh, brother ! if thine eye can see, 
Tell how, and when the end shall be — 
What hope remains for thee or me." 

Then Freedom sternly said : " I shun 
No strife, nor pang, beneath the sun, 
When human rights are staked and won. 

" I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock ; 
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock ; 
I walked with Sydney to the block. 

" The moor of Marston felt my tread ; 
Through Jersey snows the march I led; 
My voice Magenta's charges sped. 

" But now, through weary day and night, 
I watch a vague and aimless fight 
For leave to strike one blow aright. 

" On either side my foe they own ; 
One guards throuoh love his ghastly throne, 
And one through fear to reverence grown. 



318 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

« "Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed 
By open foes, or those afraid 
To speed thy coming through my aid ? 

" Why watch to see who win or fall ? — 
I shake the dust against them all; 
I leave them to their senseless brawl." 

" Nay," Peace implored ; "yet longer wait; 
The doom is near, the stake is great : 
God knoweth if it be too late. 

" Still wait and watch ; the way prepare, 
Where I, with folded wings of prayer, 
May follow, weaponless and bare." 

" Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied ; 
" Too late !" its mournful echo sighed; 
In low lament the answer died. 

A rustling as of wings in flight, 

An upward gleam of lessening white, 

So passed the vision, sound and sight. 

But round me, like a silver bell, 
Hung down the listening sky to tell 
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell. 

" Still hope and trust," it sang ; " the rod 
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod ; 
But all is possible with God !" 

John G. Whittier. 



I GIVE MY SOLDIEK BOY A BLADE, 

I give my soldier boy a blade, 

In fair Damascus fashioned well ; 
Who first the glittering falchion swayed, 

Who first beneath its fury fell, 
I know not, but I hope to know 

That for no mean or hireling trade, 
To guard no feeling base or low, 

I give my soldier boy v a blade. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 319 

Cool, calm, and clear, the lucid flood, 

In which its tempering work was done, 
As calm, as clear, as cool of mood, 

Be thou whene'er it sees the sun ; 
For country's claim, at honor's call, 

For outraged friend, insulted maid, 
At mercy's voice to bid it fall, 

I give my soldier boy a blade. 

The eye which marked its peerless edge, 

The hand that weighed its balanced poise, 
Anvil and pincers, forge and wedge, 

Are gone with all their flame and noise — 
And still the gleaming sword remains ; 

So, when in dust I low am laid, 
Remember by these heart-felt strains, 

I gave my soldier boy a blade. — Maginn* 



LANDEE. 



A warrior to his boyhood's home 

Is coming back to-day — 
Ring out the merry joy-bells wide, 

Bring flowers to grace his way ! 
Let the cannon's throat and the martial note 

Send forth a glad acclaim, 
And the loyal chieftain's welcome home 

Be worthy of his fame ! 

Hang out the dear old banner, where 

'Twill meet his flashing eye — 
Whose very breast had sheltered it, 

When rang the battle-cry ; 
Whose valiant sword, and stout right arm, 

With many a timely blow, 
Have wrought new glory for its stars, 

And crushed the haughty foe ! 

Alas ! alas ! the warrior comes, 

But not on prancing steed — 
He nevermore the cannon's roar, 

ISTor bugle-blast will heed : 



320 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

No glow lights up his marble cheek, 

No smile his soulless eye, 
That stout right arm is nerveless now, 

His good sword sheathed must lie ! 

No shouts of welcome rend the air, 

No sound the breezes swell, 
But the minute-gun and the muffled drum, 

And the mournful tolling bell. 
The warrior to his boyhood home 

Comes back in state to-day — 
But they who gloried in his name 

Can only weep and pray. 

Nor rose nor laurel wreath bring now, 

But pale flowers for his bed, 
The hero has been vanquished once ! 

The lion-heart lies dead ! 
The soldier's warfare all is done — 

Life's wandering marches o'er, 
God give him rest, among the blest, 

In Heaven for evermore ! 

High on the world's heroic list 

Shall Lander's name be seen, 
And Time, among " the cherished dead," 

Shall keep his memory green ! 
The patriot's heart shall warmer glow, 

When standing by his grave, 
And dearer still shall be the flag 

That Lander died to save. — Anon. 



UNION SONG OP THE CELT. 

Hail ! brightest banner that floats on the gale ! 
Flag of the country of Washington, hail! 
Red are thy stripes with the blood of the brave, 
Bright are thy stars as the sun on the wave ; 
Wrapt in thy folds are the hopes of the free. 
Banner of Washington ! blessings on thee ! 

Mountain-tops mingle the sky with their snow ; 
Prairies lie smiling in sunshine below; 
Rivers, as broad as the sea, in their pride, 
Border thine empires, but do not divide ; 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 321 

Niagara's voice far out-anthems the sea ; 
Land of sublimity! blessings on thee! 

Hope of the world ! on thy mission sublime, 
When thou didst burst on the pathway of time, 
Millions from darkness and bondage awoke ; 
Music was born when liberty spoke ; 
Millions to come shall yet join in the glee ; 
Land of the pilgrim's hope ! blessings on thee ! 

Traitors shall perish, and treason shall fail ; 
Kingdoms and thrones in thy glory grow pale ! 
Thou shalt live on, and thy people shall own 
Loyalty's sweet, when each heart is thy throne; 
Union and freedom thine heritage be. 
Country of Washington ! blessings on thee ! 

Wm. E. Robinson, 






THE BOY OF THE CUMBEKLAND. 

Bold Morris of the Cumberland 
Called to a negro boy on board, 
And put into his faithful hand 
His own unsullied, shining sword. 

" Take this," he said, " and keep it well ; 
Just now 'tis but a useless toy ; 
But soon, — how soon I cannot tell, — 
I'll call for it again, my boy !" 

Useless, indeed, were sword and ball 
To pierce the iron Merrirhac ; 
Like summer hail the broadsides fall 
Upon the monster's armed back. 

Short was the fight. Our frigate fair, 
Crushed by a single, deadly blow, 
Went down, her flag still high in air, 
Her guns yet booming at the foe. 

The remnant of our gallant men 
Had landed from the little boat, 
When, looking o'er the tide again, 
They saw, afar, a swimmer float. 



322 the Patriotic speaker* 

It was the negro cabin boy ; 
He rose and fell with every wave. 
They called to him — " Shipmate, ahoy !" 
No answer to their call he gave. 

And, gazing still, they saw at length, 
The captain's sword was in his teeth ; 
A weight beyond his feeble strength, 
That dragged him to the gulf beneath ! 

They shouted to him once again, — 
" Ho, shipmate ! never mind the cost ! 
" You are too weak ; you strive in vain ; 
" Let go that sword, or you are lost !" 

He heard them not, or would not hear, 
And hastily they manned the boat, 
And rowed for him. As they drew near 
He lost the strength to keep afloat. 

He sank ! Thank God, he rose once more ! 
They caught him, drew him safe on board ; 
They brought him senseless to the shore, 
And by his side the captain's sword ! 

They watched him long ; he woke at last ; 
The pale lips parted for a word ; 
On Morris a bright glance he cast, 
With, " Captain, I have kept Your sword !" 

R. W.R. 



DEATH, THE PEACE-MAKEB. 

A waste of land, a sodden plain, 

A lurid sunset sky, 
With clouds that fled and faded fast 

In ghostly phantasy ; 
A field upturned by trampling feet, 

A field up-piled with slain, 
With horse and rider blent in death, 

Upon the battle-plain. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 323 

The dying and the dead lie low ; 

For them no more shall rise 
The evening moon, nor midnight stars, 

Nor daylight's soft surprise. 
They will not wake to tenderest call, 

Nor see again each home, 
Where waiting hearts shall throb and break, 

When this day's tidings come. 

Two soldiers, lying as they fell 

Upon the reddened clay — 
In daytime, foes ; at night, in peace, 

Breathing their lives away. 
Brave hearts had stirred each manly breast ; 

Fate only made them foes, 
And lying, dying, side by side, 

A softened feeling rose. 

" Our time is short," one faint voice said ; 

" To-day we've done our best 
On different sides. What matters now ? 

To-morrow we're at rest. 
Life lies behind. I might not care ■ 

For only my own sake, 
But far away are other hearts 

That this day's work will break. 

" Among New-Hampshire's snowy hills 

There pray for me to-night 
A women, and a little girl — 

With hair like golden light" — 
And at the thought broke forth, at last, 

The cry of anguish wild 
That would no longer be repressed — 

" O God ! my wife and child !" 

" And," said the other dying man, 

" Across the Georgia plain 
There watch and wait for me loved ones 

I'll never see again. 
A little girl, with dark, bright eyes, 

Each day waits at the door ; 
The father's step, the father's kiss, 

Will never meet her more. 



324 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

" To-day we sought each other's lives ; 

Death levels all that now, 
For soon before God's mercy-seat 

Together we shall bow. 
Forgive each other while we may, 

Life's but a weary game, 
And right or wrong, the morning sun 

Will find us, dead, the same." 

The dying lips the pardon breathe, 

The dying hands entwine ; 
The last ray dies, and over all 

The stars from heaven shine ; 
And the little girl with golden hair 

And one with dark eyes bright, 
On Hampshire's hills and Georgia plain, 

Were fatherless that night. 

Ellen H. Flagg. 



NO SLAVE BENEATH THE PLAG. 

No slave beneath that starry flag, 

The emblem of the free ! 
No fettered hand shall wield the brand 

That smites for Liberty ! 
No tramp of servile armies 

Shall shame Columbia's shore, 
For he who fights for Freedom's rights 

Is free forever more ! 

No slaves beneath those glorious folds 

That o'er our fathers flew, 
When every breath was dark with death, 

But every heart was true ! 
No serfs of earth's old empires 

Knelt 'neath its shadow then ; 
And they who now beneath it bow, 

Foreveimore are men ! 

Go tell the ashes of the braves 

Who at Port Hudson fell ; 
Go tell the dust whose holy trust 

Stern Wagner guards so well : 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 325 

Go breathe it softly — slowly — 

Wherever the patriot slave 
For right has bled, and tell the dead 

He tills a freeman 's grave/ 

Go tell Kentucky's bondsmen true, 

That he who fights is free ! 
And let the tale fill every gale 

That floats o'er Tennessee ! 
Let all our mighty rivers 

The story southward pour, 
And every wave tell every slave 

To be a slave no more ! 

Go tell the brave of every land, 

Where e'er that flag has flown — 
The tyrant's fear, the patriot's cheer, 

Through every clime and zone — 
That now no more forever 

Its stripes are slavery scars ; 
No tear-drops stain its azure plain, 

Nor dim its golden stars ! 

No slave beneath that grand old flag ! 

Forever let it fly ! 
With lightning rolled in every fold. 

And flashing victory ! 
God's blessing breathe around it ; 

And when all strife is done, 
May freedom's light, that knows no night, 

Make every star a sun ! 

George Lansing Taylor. 



CIVIL WAR. 



" Rifleman, shoot me a fancy shot 

Straight at the heart of yon prowling vidette; 
Ring me a ball in the glittering spot 

That shines on his breast like an amulet !" 

" Ah captain ! here goes for a fine-drawn bead, 

There's music around when my barrel's in tune !" 
Crack! went the rifle, the messenger sped, 

And dead from his horse fell the ringing dragoon. 



326 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

" Now, rifleman, steal through the bushes, and snatch 
From your victim some trinket to handsel first blood; 
A button, a loop, or that luminous patch 

That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud !" 

" O ! captain, I staggered, and sunk on my track, 
When I gazed on the face of that fallen vidette, 
For he looked so like you, as he lay on his back, 
That my heart rose upon me, and masters me yet. 

" But I snatched off the trinket — this locket of gold — 
An inch from the centre my lead broke its way, 
Scarce grazing the picture, so fair to behold, 
Of a beautiful lady in bridal array." 

" Ha ! rifleman, fling me the locket ! — 'tis she, 

My brother's young bride — and the fallen dragoon 
Was her husband — Hush ! soldier, 'twas Heaven's decree, 
We must bury him there, by the light of the moon ! 

" But, hark ! the far bugles their warnings unite ; 
War is a virtue — weakness a sin ; 
There's a lurking and loping around us to-night ; 
Load again, rifleman, keep your hand in !" 

Once a Week. 



THE FOUE ERAS. 



The lark has sung his carol in the sky ; 

The bees have hummed their noontide harmony ; 

Still in the vale the village bells ring round, 

Still in Lewellyn-hall the jests resound: 

For now the candle-cup is circling there, 

Now glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer, 

And crowding, stop the cradle to admire 

The babe, the sleeping image of his sire. 

A few short years — and then these sounds shall hail 
The day again, and gladness fill the vale; 
So soon the child a youth, the youth a man, 
Eager to run the race his fathers ran. 
Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin ; 
The ale, now brewed, in floods of amber shine; 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 327 

And basking in the chimney's ample blaze, 
Mid many a tale told of his childish days, 
The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled, 
M 'Twas on these knees he sate so oft and smiled." 

And soon again shall music swell the breeze; 
Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees 
Vestures of nuptial white ; and hymns be sung, 
And violets scattered round ; and old and young, 
In every cottage-porch, with garlands green, 
Stand still to gaze, and gazing, bless the scene ; 
While, her dark eyes declining, by his side 
Moves in her virgin-veil the gentle bride. 

And once, alas ! nor in a distant hour, 
Another voice shall come from yonder tower ; 
When in dim chambers long black weeds are seen, 
And weepings heard where only joy has been; 
When by his children borne, and from his door 
Slowly departing to return no more, 
He rests in holy earth with them that went before. 

Rogers. 



COLUMBIA 



Harp of Columbia ! there is still 

A theme to waken thee ; 
Thou canst again the bosom thrill 
As when, of old, from hill to hill, 
Thy echoes roused the yeoman's will, 

And taught him to be free ! 

Hast thou forgot the songs of yore 

Amid the scenes of peace ? 
And shall thy music nevermore 

Aw T ake the land from shore to shore, 
As when from tyrant's hateful power, 

Our fathers sought release? 

Who calls America a land 

Degenerate and base ? 
'Tis false ! 'tis false ! that noble band 

Who sought their freedom, sword in hand, 
Shall see their sons forever stand 

A free, a loyal race. 



328 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

How base the heart that could forget 

The blood the fathers spilt ! 
How heartless he who leaves the debt 

Of gratitude to go unmet, 
And he, how tenfold baser yet, 

"Who glories in the guilt ! 

Ah, yes ! Columbia is true, 

Her sons are firm and brave ; 
Let traitors come with fierce ado, 
We'll break their columns through and through, 
A traitor's death we'll give them, too, 

And each a traitor's grave. 

Then sweep, ye winds, across the plain ! 

Ye rivers, to the sea ! 
Proclaim the word o'er earth and main, 
The blood of yore is young again, 
Its loyalty without a stain, 

Columbia still is free ! 

Dyer, 



THIRTY-POUR, 



Fling out the banner on the breeze ; 

Shake out each starry fold ; 
Summon the stalwart soldiers forth, 

The mighty, and the bold — 
The bell of freedom from its tower 

Its solemn call has tolled. 

The sound sweeps wildly o'er the land, 
Sweeps o'er the bounding sea ; 

It echoes from each mountain-top, 
The anthem of the free ; 

It snaps the chain .which sin has forged, 
It sings for liberty. 

Marshal the legions for the fight, 
The youthful and the brave ; 

Stand for the noble and the right, 
The glorious Union save ; 

Stand for the cause for which their blood 
Our patriot fathers gave. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 329 

Dread not the angry foeman's rage ; 

Dread not the tempest's crash ; 
Dread not the billows, though the cliffs 

Along the shore they lash ; 
Dread not the awful thunder's roar, 

Nor lightning's piercing flash. 

Above the cloud the brilliant sky 

Shines in immortal blue ; 
And light, like Heaven's approving smile, 

Streams, in its glory, through ; 
Be patient, till the strife is o'er ; 

Have faith to dare and do. 

With willing heart Heaven's high behest 

Fulfil without alarm ; 
The foe has planted for our hand, 

And nursed the conqueror's balm; 
And He that bade the sea " Be still," 

The stormy waves will calm. 

Then fling the banner to the wind — 

The emblem of the free ; 
Strike the sweet harp-tones that proclaim 

The reign of Liberty ; 
And bid the melody rebound 

From every trembling key. 

And count each star that studs the blue, 

Whate'er the past has been, 
A wayward wanderer, welcomed back, 

To fill its place again ;^— 
A loving band of sister-lights, 

Just like the Old Thirteen. 

Strike not one jewel from the crest 

The loving mother wore ; 
Re-set the gems upon her breast, 

Each where it stood before. 
Clasp in the glorious cynosure, 

The whole dear Thirty-Four.— & F. Smith. 



330 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE BATTLE OF POET ROYAL. 

Fair glanced the clay along Port Royal's tide, 
Glanced o'er embattled forts on either side, 
Where Hilton Head and Low Bay Point defied 

The armada of the free ; 
A martial show, that vast, invading fleet! 
When rose their flag, when mustering-drums were beat; 
When rang the cheer that all the shores repeat, 

Re-echoing o'er the sea ! 

Then came the conflict. From Fort Walker's wall 
Glanced the red fires, fast sped the hissing ball ; 
Thick smokes, volcanic, hover'd like a pall, 

A dim sulphureous veil ; 
The Bay Point batteries, like a furnace, cast 
Their iron tempest in incessant blast ; 
How might survive the crew, the spar, the mast, 

Before that fearful hail ! 

Yet all in vain ! The star-flag still arose, 
Nailed to each mast, a target for its foes ; 
The rough tars cheer, and on each frigate goes 

In undismay'd career ; 
Stern Dupont leads his Wabash to the goal, 
And Pawnee, Susquehanna, Seminole, 
And stout Bienville* their dread thunders roll, 

'Mid shout and battle-cheer. 

Thick flew the shell witlun each rampart's breath ; 
High rose the brown sana in that storm of death ; 
So o'er the desert doth Sirocco's breath 

The caravan betray ; 
For three long hours that hurricane of gore 
Through stony embrasure and rampart tore; 
Guns were dismantled, men in many a score 

Were withering swept away. 

In vain their toil ! In vain the rebel strife ; 
]STo human courage might withstand, with life, 
That storm, when every moment was so rife 
With desolating scourge ! 

* Pronounced Be-dn-veal. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 331 

They fled, they flew, their arms aside were thrown ; 
No guns were spiked, no standards were pluck' d down, 
But wild with terror, o'er the country strewn, 
Their frantic race they urge ! 

So ends the strife. The victor's guns are mute ; 
The shouting squadron their brave flag salute ; 
The veteran sailor and the raw recruit 

Their deafening cheerings pour ; 
Prone drops the flag from yonder rebel mast — 
Soon to the breeze the Union Stars are cast; 
Avenged is Sumter's humbled flag at last, 

On Carolina's shore ! 

Flag of our hearts, our symbol and our trust, 
Though treason trample thy bright folds in dust, 
Though dark rebellion, vile ambition's lust, 

Conspire to tear thee down ; 
Millions of loyal lips will thee caress ; 
Millions of loyal hearts thy stars will bless, 
Millions of loyal arms will round thee press, 

To guard thy old renown! — McOlellan. 



NEVEE ! 

"I may be asked, as I have been asked, when I am for the dissolution 
of the Union. I answer, Never — never — never I" — Henry Clay. 

You ask me when I'd rend the scroll 

Our fathers' names are written o'er, 
When I would see our flag unroll 

Its mingled stars and stripes no more— 
When, with a worse than felon's hand, 

Or felon's counsels, I would sever 
The Union of this glorious land ? 

I answ T er, never ! never ! never ! 

Think ye that I could brook to* see 

The emblem I have loved so long, 
Borne peaceful o'er the distant sea, 

Torn, trampled by a frenzied throng? 
Divided, measured, parcelled out, 

Tamely surrendered up forever, 
To gratify a lawless rout 

Of traitors ? never ! never ! never ! 



332 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

• 

On yonder lone and lovely steep 

The sculptor's art, the builder's power, 
The landmark o'er the soldier's sleep, 

Have reared a lofty funeral tower ; 
There it shall stand until the river 

That rolls beneath shall cease to flow ; 
Aye, till the hill itself shall quiver 

With nature's last convulsive throe. 

Upon that column's marble base, 

Its shafts that soar into the sky, 
There still is room enough to trace 

The list of millions yet to die. 
And I would cover all its h eighth 

And breadth, before the hour of shame, 
Till space should even fail to write 

Even the initials of a name. 

Nay, I would haste to swell the ranks, 

Direct the fire, or lead the way, 
While battle swept the rifted ranks, 

And bore the serried lines away ; 
Fall, bleeding, in the doubtful strife, 

Beneath the motto of my sires, 
And draw the latest breath of life 

Before that Union flag expires. 



1 



THE EXECUTION. 



The clock strikes Four ! 

Round the debtors' door 
Are gathered a couple of thousand or more ; 

As many await 

At the press-yard gate, 
Till slowly its folding-doors open ; and straight 
The mob divides ; and between their ranks 
A wagon comes loaded with posts and planks. 

The clock strikes Five ! 

The sherhTs arrive, 

And the crowd is so great that the street seems alive. 
* * % * * 

Sweetly, oh! sweetly, the morning breaks 

With roseate streaks, 
Like the first faint blush on a maiden's cheeks ; 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 3, 

Seemed as that mild and clear blue sky- 
Smiled upon all things far and nigh, — 
All, save the wretch condemned to die ! 
Alack ! that ever so fair a sun 
As that which its course has now begun, 
Should rise on such scenes of misery. 
Should gild with rays so light and free 
That dismal, dark-frowning gallows-tree ! 
And hark ! a sound comes big with fate, 
The clock from St. Sepulchre's tower strikes — Eight I 
List to that low funeral bell ; 
It is tolling, alas ! a living man's knell ! 
And see ! from forth that opening door 
They come ; he steps the threshold o'er 
Who never shall tread upon threshold more. 
God ! 'tis a fearsome thing to see 
That pale man's mute agony ; 
The glare of that wild despairing eye, 
Now bent on the crowd, now turned to the sky, 
As though 'twere scanning, in doubt and in fear, 
The path of the spirit's unknown career; 
Those pinioned arms, those hands that ne'er 
Shall be lifted again — not even in prayer ; 
That heaving chest ! — Enough, 'tis done ! — 
The bolt has fallen ! — The spirit is gone — 
For weal or for woe is known but to One ! 
Oh ! 'twas a fearsome sight ! Ah, me ! 
A deed to shudder at, — not to see. 

Richard Harris JBarham. 



i 



THE CHARGE AT WATERLOO. 

On came the whirlwind — like the last 
But fiercest sweep of tempest blast ; 
On came the whirlwind — steel-gleams broke 
Like lightning through the rolling smoke ; 

The war was waked anew. 
Three hundred cannon-mouths roared loud, 
And from their throats, with flash and cloud, 

Their showers of iron threw. 
Beneath their fire, in full career, 
Rushed on the ponderous cuirassier, 
The lancer couched his ruthless spear, 
And, hurrying as to havoc near, 

The cohorts' eagles flew. 



334 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

In one dark torrent, broad and strong, 

The advancing onset rolled along, 

Forth harbingered by fierce acclaim, 

That from the shroud of smoke and flame, 

Pealed wildly the imperial name. 

But on the British heart were lost 

The terrors of the charging host ; 

For not an eye the storm that viewed 

Changed its proud glance of fortitude ; 

Nor was one forward footstep stayed, 

As dropped the dying and the dead." 

Fast as their ranks the thunder tear, 

Fast they renewed each serried square ! 

And on the .wounded and the slain 

Closed their diminished files again; 

Till from their lines scarce spears' lengths three, 

Emerging from the smoke they see 

Helmet and plume, and panoply — 

Then waked their fire at once ! 
Each musketeer's revolving knell 
As fast, as regularly fell, 
As when they practise to display 
Their discipline on festal day. 

Then down went helm and lance, 
Down went the eagle-banners sent, 
Down reeling steeds and riders went, 
Corselets were pierced and pennons rent; 

And, to augment the fray, 
Wheeled full against their staggering flanks, 
The English horsemen's foaming ranks 

Forced their resistless way. 
Then to the musket-knell succeeds 
The clash of swords, the neigh of steeds ; 
As plies the smith his clanging trade, 
Against the cuirass rang the blade ; 
And while amid their close array 
The well-served cannon rent their way, 
And while amid their scattered band 
Raged the fierce rider's bloody brand, 
Recoiled in common rout and fear 
Lancer and guard and cuirassier, 
Horsemen and foot — a mingled host — 
Their leaders fallen, their standards lost. 

Sir Walter Scott. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 335 






THE LORD OF BUTRAGO. 

" Your horse is faint, my King — my Lord ! your gallant 

horse is sick — 
His limbs are torn, his breast is gored, on his eye the film is 

thick ; 
Mount, mount on mine, oh, mount apace, I pray thee, mount 

and fly ! 
Or in my arms I'll lift your grace — their trampling hoofs are 

nigh! 

" My King — my King ! you're wounded sore — the blood runs 

from your feet ; 
But only lay a hand before, and I'll lift you to your seat ; 
Mount, Juan, for they gather fast ! — I hear their coming cry — 
Mount, mount, and ride for jeopardy — I'll save you though I 

die! 

" Stand, noble steed ! this hour of need — be gentle as a lamb ; 
I'll kiss the foam from off thy mouth — thy master dear I am — 
Mount, Juan, mount ; whate'er betide, away the bridle fling, 
And plunge the rowels in his side. — My horse shall save my 
King! 

" Nay, never speak ; my sires, Lord King, received their 

land from yours, 
And joyfully their blood shall spring, so be it thine secures : 
If I should fly, and thou, my King, be found among the dead, 
How could I stand 'mong gentlemen, such scorn on my gray 

head? 

u Castile's proud dames shall never point the finger of disdain, 
And say there's one that ran away when our good lords were 

slain ! 
I leave Diego in your care — you'll fill his father's place ; 
Strike, strike the spur, and never spare — God's blessing on 

your grace !" 

So spake the brave Montanez, Butrago's lord was he ; 
And turned him to the coming host in steadfastness and glee ; 
He flung himself among them, as they came down the hill — 
He died, God wot ! but not before his sword had drunk its 
fill. 

J. G. Loclchart. 



336 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



HERMINIUS AND MAMILIUS. 

Right glad were all the Romans 

Who, in that hour of dread, 
Against great odds bare up the war 

Around Valerius dead, 
When from the south the cheering 

Rose with a mighty swell ; 
" Herminius comes, Herminius, 

Who kept the bridge so well !" 

Mamilius spied Herminius, 

And dashed across the way. 
"Herminius! -I have sought thee 

Through many a bloody day. 
One of us two, Herminius, 

Shall never more go home, 
I will lay on for Tusi-ulum, 

And lay thou on for Rome !" 

All round them paused the battle, 

While met in mortal fray , . 
The Roman and the Tusculan, 

The horses black and gray. 
Herminius smote Mamilius 

Through breast-plate and through breast; 
And fast flowed out the purple blood 

Over the purple vest. 

Mamilius smote Herminius 

Through head-piece and through head; 
And side by side those chiefs of pride 

Together fell down dead. 
Down fell they dead together 

In a great lake of i>ore ; 
And still stood all who saw them fall 

While men might count a score. 

Macaulay. 



BARBAEA FEIETCHIE. 

Up from the meadows rich with corn, 
Clear in the cool September morn, 



POETIGAL EXTRACTS. 337 

The clustered spires of Frederick stand 
Green- walled by the hills of Maryland. 

Round about them orchards sweep, 
Apple and peach-tree fruited deep. 

Fair as a garden of the Lord 

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, 

On that pleasant morn of the early fall 
When Lee marched over the mountain wall, — 

Over the mountains winding down, 
Horse and foot, into Frederick town. 

Forty flags with their silver stars, 
Forty flags with their crimson bars, 

Flapped in the morning wind; the sun 
Of noon looked down, and saw not one. 

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, 
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten ; 

Bravest of all in Frederick town, 

She took up the flag the men hauled down ; 

In her attic- window the staff" she set, 
To show that one heart was loyal yet. 

Up the street came the rebel tread, 
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 

Under his slouched hat left and right. 
He glanced ; the old flag met his sight. 

" Halt !" — -the dust-brown ranks stood fast. 
" Fire !"— out blazed the rifle-blast. 

It shivered the window, pane and sash ; 
It rent the banner with seam and gash. 

Quick as it fell from the broken staff 
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf; 

She leined far out on the window-si'll, 

And shook it forth with a royal will. 



338 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

" Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, 
But spare your country's flag," she said. 

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame 
Over the face of the leader came ; 

The nobler nature within him stirred 
To life at that woman's deed and word : 

" Who touches a hair of yon gray head 
Dies like a dog ! March on !" he said. 

All day long, through Frederick street, 
Sounded the tread of marching feet : 

All day long that free flag tossed 
Over the heads of the rebel host. 

Ever its torn folds rose and fell 

On the loyal winds that loved it well ; 

And through the hill-gaps sunset light 
Shone over it with a -warm good-night. 

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, 

And the rebel rides on his raids no more. 

Honor to her ! and let a tear 

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. 

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave 
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave ! 

Peace, and order, and beauty draw 
Round thy symbol of light and law ; 

And ever the*stars above look down 
On thy stars below in Frederick town ! 

J. #. WhiMer. 



[ 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 339 



THE DOOM OF MAO GEEGOB. 

" Mac Gregor ! Mac Gregor ! remember the foeman ! 

The morn rises proud on the brow of Ben Lomond; 

The clans are impatient, and chide this delay; 

Arise ! let us haste to Glen Allan away !" 

Stern scowled the Mac Gregor, then silent and sullen, 
He turned his red eye to the braes of Strath Fillan: 
" Go, Malcolm, to sleep ; let the clans be dismissed ! 
The Campbell, this night, for Mac Gregor may rest." 

11 Mac Gregor ! Mac Gregor ! our scouts have been flying, 

Three days, round the hills of Mac Nab and Glen Lyon ; 

Of riding and running such tidings they bear, 

We must meet them at home, else they'll quickly be here." 
"The Campbell may come, as his promises bind him; 
And haughty Mac Nab, with his giants behind him, 
But Pra pledged, this night, to relinquish the fray, 
And do — what it freezes my vitals to say. 
I have sworn, by the cross, by my God, by my all, 
An oath which I cannot and dare not recall : 
Ere the shadows of midnight fall east from the pile, 
To meet with a spirit, this night, in Glen Gyle. 
Last eve, in my chamber, all thoughtful and lone, 
I was calling to mind a dark deed I had done, 
When entered a lady, with visage so wan ! 
And looks such as never were fastened on man ! 
I knew her — O brother ! I knew her too well ! 
Of that lady so fair, such a tale I could tell ! 
Despairing and mad, to futurity blind, 
The present to shun, and some respite to find, 
I swore, ere the shadow fell east from the pile, 
To meet her alone, this night, in Gl en Gyle. 
She told me, aud turned my chilled heart into stone, 
That the name and renown of Mac Gregor are gone; 
That the pine which for ages has shed its bright halo 
Afar on the mountains of Highland Glen Falo, 
Should wither and fall, ere the turn of yon moon 
Smit through by the canker of hated Colhoun. 
That a feast on Mac Gregor each day should be common, 
For years, to the eagles of Lenox and Lomond. 
A parting embrace in one moment she gave — 
Her breath was a furnace, her bosom* the grave! 
Then, flitting elusive, she said, with a frow, 
The mighty Mac Gregor shall yet be my own." 



340 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

" Mac Gregor ! thy fancies are wild as the wind ; 

The dreams of the night have disordered thy mind ! 

Come, gird thy bright claymore on ! march to the field! 

Show mm, and not spirits, thy buckler and shield ! 

Thy fantasies frightful shall quickly take wing 

When loud with thy bugle Glen Allan shall ring !" 

Like a glimpse of the moon through the storm of the night, 

Mac Gregor's red eye shed one sparkle of light! 

It faded — it darkened ! He shuddered ; he sighed: 

"No! not for the universe!" low he replied. 

Away went Mac Gregor, but went not alone ; 

To watch the dread rendezvous, Malcolm is gone. 

They oared the broad Lomond, so still and serene, 

And deep in its bosom, how awful the scene ! 

O'er mountains inverted the blue .waters curled, 

And rocked them on skies of a far nether world. 

Not a foot was abroad on forest or hill, 

No sound, save the lullaby sung by the rill. 

All silent they went, for the time was approaching, 

The moon the blue zenith already was touching. 

Mute nature was roused in the bounds of the glen 

The wild-deer of Gairtney abandoned his den, 

Fled panting away over river and isle, 

Nor once turned his eye to the brook of Glen Gyle. 

The fox fled in terror. The eagle awoke, 

Where high he had dozed on the shelf of the rock; 

Astonished, to hide, in the moonbeam he flew 

And pierced the far heavens till lost in their blue. 

Young Malcolm, at distance, crouched trembling, the while 

Mac Gregor stood lone by the brook of Glen Gyle. 

Ten minutes had passed, ere he spied on the stream 

A skiff gliding light, where a lady did seem. 

Her sail was the web of a gossamer's loom, 

The glow-worm her wake-light, the rainbow her boom, 

A dim, rayless beam was her prow, and her mast 

Like wold-lire, at midnight, that glares on the waste. 

Young Malcolm beheld the pale lady approach. 

The chieftain salute her — and shrink from her touch! 

He saw the Mac Gregor kneel down on the plain, 

As begging for something he could not obtain. 

She raised him indignant, derided his stay, 

Then bore him on board, set her sail, and away. 
Though fast the red bark down the river did glide, 
Yet faster ran Malcolm adown by its side. 
" Mac Gregor ! Mac Gregor !" he bitterly cried ; 
"Mac Gregor! Mac Gregor!" the echoes replied. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 341 

He struck at the lady — but, strange though it seem, 
His sword only fell on the rocks of the stream, 
While the groans from the boat that ascended amain 
Were the groans of a bosom in horror and pain. 
Then it reached the dark lake, and bore lightly away — 
Mac Gregor had vanished forever and aye. 



THE MEN OF MAEBLEHEAD. 

It was the middle of the night, 

And deep was slumber's spell ; 
The sexton from the steeple's height 

Tolled loud the old church bell ; — 
And quickly crowded young and old 

Before the echoes fell, 
To hear the thrilling story told 

They knew before so well ! 

"What ho ! ye men of Marblehead, 

That fought so well of yore ! 
Are all your fathers' virtues dead, 

And will they wake no more ? 
The traitor's hand has dared to stain 

The starry flag ye bore ; — 
Will ye not draw the swords again 

So bravely drawn before ?" 

'Twas midnight when the summons came. 

The sun his rising sped, 
And glancing with an eye of flame 

Across the ocean-bed, 
Saw bright the well-known colors play, — 

The blue and white and red, — 
And steel gleam through the morning gray, 
Where grimly trod the Southern way 

The men of Marblehead ! 

Up with the banner of the stars ! 

Long may its colors fly ! 
They led our fathers to the wars, 

We will not cast them by ! 
No I let the earth grow crimson red, 

And lurid flash the sky ; 



342 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

"With these fair folds above us spread, 
Like the brave men of Marblehead, 
We conquer, or we die ! 

JR. W. JR. 



STARS IN MY COUNTRY'S SKY. 

Are ye all there ? Are ye all there, 

Stars of my country's sky ? 
Are ye all there ? Are ye all there, 

In your shining homes on high ? 
" Count us ! Count us," was their answer, 

As they dazzled on my view, 
In glorious perihelion, 

Amid their field of blue. 

I cannot count ye rightly ; 

There's a cloud with sable rim ; 
I cannot make your number out, 

For my eyes with tears are dim. 
Oh ! bright and blessed angel, 

On white wing floating by, 
Help me to count, and not to miss 

One star in my country's sky ! 

Then the angel touched mine eyelids, 

And touched the frowning cloud ; 
And its sable rim departed, 

And it fled with murky shroud. 
There was no missing Pleiad, 

'Mid all that sister race ; 
The Southern Cross gleamed radiant forth, 

And the Pole-Star kept its place. 

Then I knew it was the angel 

Who woke the hymning strain 
That at our Redeemer's birth 

Peal'd out o'er Bethlehem's plain ; 
And still its heavenly key tone 

My listening country held, 
For all her constellated stars 

The diapason swelled. 

Z. H. $. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 343 

\ 
TO THE MEN OF THE NOETH AND WEST. 

Men of the North and West, 

Wake in your might, 
Prepare, as the rebels have done, 

For the fight ; 
You cannot shrink from the test, 
Rise ! men of the North and West ! 

They have torn down your banner of stars ; 

They have trampled the laws ; 
They have stifled the freedom they hate, 

For no cause ! 
Do you love it or slavery best ? 
Speak! men of the North and West. 

They strike at the life of the State — 

Shall the murder be done ? 
They cry, " We are two !" and you ? 

" We are one/" 
You must meet them then, breast to breast, 
On ! men of the North and West ! * 

Not with words ; they laugh them to scorn, 

And tears they despise ; 
But with swords in your hands, and death 

In your eyes ! 
Strike home ! leave to God all the rest ; — 
Strike ! men of the North and West ! 

B. R. Stoddard, 



THE POWDEE BOY OF THE CAYUGA. 

The twenty-fourth of April was slowly coming on, 

And in the East were shining the red gleams of the dawn; 

As the good ship Cayuoa the vanguard bravely led : — 

She was the Admiral's flag-ship, of the " Column of the Red." 

She was a wooden gun-boat ; and, looming far away, 

We saw where all the rebel rams in iron armor lay. 

Out spake the gallant captain, as we sailed swiftly in, 

" It isn't the iron ships, boys, but the iron hearts that win." 



344 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Eleven bore down upon us ; we fought them one by one ; — 
Ah ! heavily they felt, that day, our heavy Dahlgren gun ! 
They swept our decks with broadsides — but the gunners still 

held on, 
And ceaselessly we answered, with the heavy Dahlgren gun. 

Three of their ships were sinking,— but still the rest drew 

near ; 
When Boggs, in the Varuna, attacked them with a cheer ; 
With answering cheers we filled the air above the battle's 

din : — 
w It isn't the iron ships, boys, but the iron hearts that win." 

A shell from the Varuna came screaming through the sky, 
And struck upon the spar-deck, the Dahlgren's powder-boy ; 
'Twas little Gustav Fincke, the bravest of us all ; 
It made the sternest weep to see our little hero fall. 

He turned to the forts and the city, and gave a cry of pain: 
" My God," he said, " I can never fight for my country 

again !" 
We heard it — and fought the harder, to think that he could 

not; 
And through their iron armor we drove our iron shot. 

Shall I tell the end of the battle? You know from Fame's 

own lips ; 
The spirit of our Yankee tars was stronger than their ships, — 
The spirit of Gustav Fincke, the boy of the Dahlgren gun; 
And it wasn't the iron ships, boys, but the iron hearts that 

won! 

B. W. R. 



THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. 

King David, from Adullam's cave, looked down all stern and 

pale 
Where the host of the Philistines -lay encamped in Judah's 

vale ; 
And beyond their flaunting banners, mid groves of palm-shade 

dim, 
He saw his childhood's early home — the town of Bethlehem ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 345 

He sank upon the hillside — forgot the cares of kings ;. 

His heart went back to childish days and thought on childish 

things ; 
" King David longed," the Scripture saith — Ah ! through 

that simple word, 
What deep-toned woe in every age the suffering heart hath 

heard ! 

IJe longed once more in the orchard to taste the fig and 

date, 
And to drink the crystal water of the well hard by the gate : 
And as he spake, the weary eye belied the diadem, 
" Ah ! who will bring me water from the well of Bethlehem !" 

The listening warriors stood appalled. The trumpet's loud 

defiance 
Came wafted on the morning air, up from the host of giants; 
When lo ! three mighty captains, King David's wish that 

heard, 
Went striding down the hill-side, without a single word ! 

No rampart to defend them, no narrow pass to keep, 

They marched to meet an army, as streamlets to the deep ! 

Great shouts of scorn and laughter broke from the waiting 
foe, 

While Israel breathed in silent prayer, or groaned in speech- 
less woe. 

On went the dauntless heroes, nor stayed for friend or foe, 
Until they passed the rocky ground, and reached the vale 

below ; 
Then, like a mighty iron wedge, they cleft that army wide — 
Bold Jasobeara in the van, and one on either side ! 

The armed heads before them stood thick as bearded grain, 
Bat fell beneath their flashing blades — and never rose again ! 
Behind, for many a cubit, they left a bloody swath, 
Where lay the dead and dying sons of Askelon and Gath. 

At length the war-cloud lifted, and the war-cry ceased to 

swell, 
And the Hebrews saw their champions statid by the sacred 

well. 
All round lay weltering corpses, and the heathen stood afar, 
Watching in fear the captains, red with the hues of war. 



346 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Alas ! ^from helm and breastplate the drops that slowly fell, 
As the worn and weary heroes filled a chalice at the well ; — 
They were no drops from Pagan dead that strewed the earth 

around, 
But of the bravest Jewish blood that e'er wet Jewish ground ! 

Oh, God, who saved our fathers ! have mercy now and here ! 
See, Jasobeam fainting stands, and leans upon his spear ; 
Shamma and Eleazar still bravely take their places, ^ 

And hold him up on either side with pale but steadfast faces. 

The captains turned once more their eyes to where their 

brethren prayed, 
Then raised the war cry of the Lord, and bared each crimson 

blade ; 
But he who led the onset now walked feebly up the dell, 
And only bore a chalice, with the water from the well. 

All Israel gazed with curdling blood, and counted them as 

lost ; 
How could the wounded, feeble three, again o'ercome a 

host? 
But lo ! they walked unharmed the path cut out before with 

sword, 
For round about them brightly shone the glory of the Lord ! 

Mid tears of joy and shoutings, they mounted to the hold, 
Bearing in pride the water, more precious now than gold, — 
And, placing at their sovereign's feet the pledge of love and 

power, 
Returned in silence, every man where he had stood before . 

King David smiled through falling tears, as, on the moun- 
tain sod, 

He poured the costly liquid out, an offering to God, 

" Far be it from my lips," he said, " to taste the price of 
slaughter ; 

God hath rebuked my foolish wish, and given me blood for 
water ! 

B. W. B. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 347 



THE BATTLE. 

Heavy and solemn, 

A cloudy column, 
Through the green plain they marching came ! 
Measureless spread, like a table dread, 
For the wild grim dice of the iron game. 
Looks are bent on the shaking ground, 
Hearts beat low with a knelling sound ; 
Swift by the breast that must bear the brunt, 
Gallops the major along the front ; — 

« Halt !" 
And fettered they stand at the stark command, 
And the warriors, silent, halt ! 

See the smoke, how the lightning is cleaving asunder ! 

Hark ! the guns, peal on peal, how they boom in their thun- 
der ! 

From host to host, with kindling sound, 

The shouting signal circles round ; 

Ay, shout it forth to life or death, 

Freer already breathes the breath ! 

The war is waging, slaughter is raging, 

And heavy through the reeking pall 
The iron death-dice fall ! 

Nearer they close — foes upon foes ; 

"Ready !" — from square to square it goes. 

The dead meAMie bathed in the weltering blood ; 

And the living are blent in the slippery flood, 

And the feet as they reeling and sliding go, 

Stumble still ojp the corses that sleep below. 

" What ! Francis !"— " Give Charlotte my last farewell." 

As the dying man murmurs, the thunders swell, 

" I'll give — O God ! are their guns so near ? 

Ho ! comrades ! — yon volley ! — Look sharp to the rear ! 

I'll give thy Charlotte thy last farewell ; 

Sleep soft ! where death thickest descendeth in rain, 

The friend thou forsakest thy siole may regain !" 

Hither ward, thitherward reels the fight ; 

Dark and more darkly day glooms into night, 

Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er, 

In the life to come, that we meet once more ! 

Hark to the hoofs that galloping go ! 
The adjutants flying — 



< 



348 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

The horsemen press hard on the panting foe, 
Their thunder booms, in dying — 

Victory ! 
Terror has seized on the dastards all, 
And their colors fall ! 

Victory ! 
Closed is the brunt of the glorious fight ! 
And the day, like a conqueror, burets on the night. 
Trumpet and fife swelling choral along, 
The triumph already sweeps marching in song, 
Farewell, fallen brothers ; though this life be o'er, 
Therms another, in which ice shall meet you once more ! 

Translated from Schiller by Bulwer. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

It was a starry night in June, the air was soft and still, 
When the minute men from Cambridge came, and gathered 

on the hill ; 
Beneath us lay the sleeping town, around us frowned the fleet; 
But the pulse of freemen, not of slaves, within our bosoms beat; 
And every heart rose high with hope, as fearlessly we said, 
" We will be numbered with the free, or numbered with the 

dead !" 

" Bring out the line to mark the trench, and stretch it on the 

sward !" 
The trench is marked, the tools are brought, we utter not a 

word, 
But stack our guns, then fall to work with mattock and with 

spade, — 
A thousand men with sinewy arms, and not a sound was made. 
So still were we, the stars beneath, that scarce a whisper fell ; 
We heard the red-coat's musket click, and heard him cry, 

"All's v.- oil!" 

And here and there a twinkling port, reflected on the deep, 
In many a wavy shadow showed their sullen guns asleep. 
Sleep on, ye bloody, hireling crew ! In careless slumber lie ! 
The trench is growing broad and deep, the breastwork broad* 

and high. 
~No striplings we, but bear the arms that held the French in 

check, 
The drum that beat at Louisburg, and thundered in Quebec ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 349 

See how the morn is breaking ! the red is in the sky ; 

The mist is creeping from the stream that floats in silence by ; 

The Lively' 's hull looms through the fog, and they our works 

have spied, 
For the ruddy flash and round shot part in thunder from her 

side ; 
And the Falcon and the Cerberus make every bosom thrill, 
With gun and shell, and drum and bell, and boatswain's 

whistle shrill ; 
But deep and wider grows the trench as spade and mattock 

ply, 

For we have to cope with fearful odds, and the time is draw- 
ing nigh, 

Up with the pine-tree banner ! Our gallant Prescott stands 
Amid the plunging shell and shot, and plants it with his 

hands ; 
Up with the shout ! for Putnam comes, upon his reeking bay, 
With bloody spur and foaming bit, in haste to join the fray ; 
And Pomeroy, with his snow-white hairs, and face all flush 

and sweat, 
Unscathed by French and Indian, wears a youthful glory yet. 

Hark ! from the town a trumpet ! the barges at the wharf 

Are crowded with the living freight, and now they're- push- 
ing off; 

With clash and glitter, trump and drum, in all its bright 
array, 

Behold the splendid sacrifice move slowly o'er the bay! 

And still and still the barges fill, and still across the deep, 

Like thunder-clouds along the sky, the hostile transports 
sweep ; 

And now they're forming at the Point, and now the lines ad- 
vance ; 

We see beneath the sultry sun their polished bayonets glance ; 

We hear a-near the throbbing drum, the bugle challenge 
ring : — 

Quick bursts, and loud, the flashing cloud, and rolls from 
wing to wing. 

But on the height our bulwark stands, tremendous in its 
gloom, 

As sullen as a tropic sky, and silent as a tomb ! 

And so we waited till we saw, at scarce ten rifles' length, 

The old vindictive Saxon spite in all its stubborn strength; — 

When sudden, flash on flash, around the jagged ra-mpan s burst 

From every gun the livid light, upon the toe accursed ! 



350 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

, Then quailed a monarch's might before a free-born people's 

ire ; — 
Then drank the sword the veteran's life, where swept the 

yeoman's fire ; 
Then, staggered by the shot, we saw their serried columns 

reel, 
And fall, as falls the bearded grain beneath the reaper's steel ! 
And then arose a mighty shout, that might have waked the 

dead, 
" Hurrah ! they rdn — the field is won ! Hurrah ! the foe is 

fled !" 
And every man has dropped his gun to clutch a neighbor's 

hand, 
As his heart kept praying all the time for home and native 

land. 

t& Thrice on that day we stood the shock of thrice ten thousand 
foes, 

And thrice that day within our lines the shout of victory 
rose ; 

And though our swift fire slackened then, and, reddening in 
the skies, 

We saw from Charlestown's roofs and walls the flaming col- 
umns rise, 

Yet while we had a cartridge left, we still maintained the 
fight, 

Nor gained the foe one foot of ground upon that blood-stained 
height. 

., What though for us no laurels bloom, nor o'er the nameless 

brave 
No sculptured trophy, scroll, nor hatch, records a warrior's 

grave ? 
What though the day to us was lost ? Upon the deathless 

page 
The everlasting charter stands, for every land and age ! 
For man hath broke his felon bonds and cast them in the dust, 
And claimed his heritage divine, and justified his trust; 
While through his rifted prison-bars the hues of freedom pour, 
O'er every nation, race, and clime, on every sea and shore, 
Such glories as the patriarch viewed, when, 'mid the darkest 

skies, 
He saw above the ruined world the bow of promise rise ! 

Frederick JS. Gozzens. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 351 



THE KNIGHT'S TOAST. 

The feast is o'er ! Now brimming wine 
In lordly cup is seen to shine 

Before each eager guest ; 
And silence fills the crowded hall, 
As deep as when the herald's call 

Thrills in the loyal breast. 

Then up arose the noble host, 

And smiling cried : " A toast ! a toast ! 

To all our ladies fair ! 
Here before all, I pledge the name 
. Of Staunton's proud and beauteous dame,- 

The Ladye Gundamere !" 

Then to his feet each gallant sprung 
And joyous was the shout that rung, 

As Stanley gave the word ; 
And every cup was raised on high, 
Nor ceased the loud and gladsome cry, 

Till Stanley's voice was heard. 

" Enough, enough," he smiling said, 
And lowly bent his haughty head ; 

" That all may have their due, 
Now each in turn, must play his part, 
And pledge the lady of his heart, 
Like gallant knight and true !" 

Then one by one, each guest sprang up, 
And drained in turn the brimming cup, 

And named the loved one's name ; 
And each, as hand on high he raised, 
His lady's grace or beauty praised, 

Her constancy and fame. 

"'Tis now St. Leon's turn to rise ; 

On him are fixed those countless eyes ; — 

A gallant knight is he ; 
Envied by some,jdmired by all, 
Far famed in lady's bower, and hall, — 

The flower of chivalry. 



352 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

St. Leon raised his kindling eye, 
And lifts the sparkling cup on high : 
" I drink to one" he said, 
" Whose image never may depart, 
Deep graven on this grateful heart, 
Till memory be dead. 

" To one, whose love for me shall last, 
When lighter passions long have past,— 

So holy 'tis and true ; 
To one, whose love hath longer dwelt, 
More deeply fixed, more keenly felt, 

Thau any pledged by you." 

Each guest upstarted, at the word, 
And laid a hand upon his sword, 

With fury-flashing eye ; 
And Stanley said: "We crave the name, 
Proud knight, of this most peerless dame, 

Whose love you count so high." 

St. Leon paused, as if he would 

Not breathe her name in careless mood, 

Thus lightly to another; 
Then bent his noble head, as though 
To give that word the reverence due, 

And gently said : " My Mother !" 



THE LION'S BRIDE. 

In - myrtle, and bridliiobes, arrayed, 
The keeper's daughter, a lovely maid, 

Enters the lion's cage, and he 
Crouches before her lovingly. 

So wild and fierce before, he lies 
And looks up into his mistress' eyes ; 
The maiden, so gentle and full of grace, 
Strokes him softly with tearful face. 

"In the days gone by, my comrade wild, 
We were true playmates, %jjild and child; 
We loved each other, and loved to play; — ■ 
Alas! our childhood has passed away ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 353 

" Before we thought it, thy royal head 
Was maned and stately and full of dread ; 
And I, thou seest, have grown apart, 
No longer a child with a childish heart ! 

" Ah !. were I a child, and still by thee, 
Thou playmate strong, and true, and free ! 
Now I must follow — it is my doom ! — 
Out among strangers a strange bridegroom. 

"He saw me once, and thought me fair, 
And now they have made us a wedded pair! 
A wreath on the head, old comrade, see ! 
And eyes that are weeping bitterly ! 

" Art thou grimly frowning that this should be ? 
Nay, I am calm ; be calm like me ! 
Yonder he comes, who my master is : — 
Old friend, I give thee a farewell kiss !" 

As from his head her lips she took, 
The iron bars with his passion shook. 
He saw the youth on the other side : — 
Now horror seizes the hapless bride ! 

For the lion stands sentry at the door, 
And lashes his sides with terrible roar ; — 
In vain she will threaten, command or pray, 
Wrathful and watchful he stops the way ! 

Without, there are shrieks of confusion and fear; 
The youth cries " Bring me a weapon here ! 
I will shoot him down where he stands in the cage!" 
Loud roars the lion, afoam with rage. 

One step the maiden nearer brings, 
Transformed with fury, the Hon springs! — 
And the form so fair beneath him lies, 
Bleeding and torn a ghastly prize ! 

And when he saw the dear blood flow 
He lay down by the corse in gloomy woe ; 
From the dead bride he would not part, 
Till the bridegroom's bullet pierced his heart ! 

A. Chamisso, translated by B. W. It. 



354 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE FELON. 

Oh ! mark hi8 wan and hollow cheeks, and mark his eye-balls 

glare, 
And mark his teeth in anguish clenched — the anguish of 

despair ! 
Know, three days since, his penance o'er, yon culprit left a 

jail; 
And since three days, no food has passed his lips, so parched 

and pale.. 

" Where shall I turn ?" the wretch exclaims ; " where hide 

my shameful head? 
How fly from scorn, or how contrive to earn my honest 

bread ? 
This branded hand would gladly toil ; but when for work I 

pray, 
Who views this mark, ' A felon !' cries, and loathing turns 

away. 

My heart has greatly erred — but now would fain return to 

good! 
My hand has deeply sinned — but yet has ne'er been stained 

with blood ! 
For alms, or work, in vain I sue — the scorners both deny ; 
I starve ! I starve ! Then what remains ? this choice — to sin, 

or die ! 

Here, Virtue spurns me with disdain, — there, Pleasure spreads 

her snare ; 
Strong habit drives me back to vice ; and, urged by fierce 

despair, 
I strive, while hunger gnaws my heart, to fly from shame — 

in vain ! 
World! 'tis thy cruel will! — I yield, and plunge in guilt 

again ! 

There's mercy in each ray of light that mortal eyes e'er 

saw; 
There's mercy in each breath of air that mortal lips e'er 

draw; 
There's mercy both for bird and beast in Heaven's indulgent 

plan ; 
There's mercy in each creeping thing ; but man has none for 

man ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 355 

Ye proudly honest ! when you heard my wounded conscience 

groan, 
Had generous hand, or feeling heart, one glimpse of mercy 

shown 
That act had made, from burning eyes, sweet tears of virtue 

roll, 
Had fixed my heart, assured my faith — and heaven had 

gained a soul !" 

M. G. Lewis, 



THE GIFT OF TEITEMITJS. 

Tritemius of Herbipolis one day, 

While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray, 

Alone with God, as was his pious choice, 

Heard from beneath a miserable voice — 

A sound that seemed of all sad things to tell, 

As of a lost soul crying out of hell. 

Thereat the abbot rose, the chain whereby 

His thoughts went upward broken by that cry, 

And, looking from the casement, saw below 

A wretched woman, with gray hair allow, 

And withered hands stretched up to him, who cried 

For alms as one who might not be denied. 

She cried : " For the dear love of Him who gave 
His life for ours, my child from bondage save ; — 
My beautiful, brave first-born chained with slaves 
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves 
Lap the white walls of Tunis !" " What I can 
I give," Tritemius said — " my prayers." " O man 
Of God J" she cried, for grief had made her bold, 
" Mock me not so ; I ask not prayers, but gold ; 
Words cannot serve me, alms alone suffice ; 
Even while I plead, perchance my first born dies." 

" Woman !" Tritemius answered, " from our door 

None go Unfed ; hence are we always poor. 

A single soldo is our only store — 

Thou hast our prayers, what can we give thee more ?" 

" Give me," she said, " the silver candlesticks 
On either side of the great crucifix; 
God well may spare them on His errand sped, 
Or he can give you golden ones instead." 



356 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Then said Tritemius, " Even as thy word, 

Woman, so be it ; and our gracious Lord, 

Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, 

Pardon me if a human soul I prize 

Above the gifts upon his altar piled ! 

Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child." ^ 

But his hand trembled as the holy alms 

He laid within the beggar's palms ; 

And as she vanished down the linden shade, 

He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed. 

So the day passed ; and when the twilight came 
He rose to find the chapel all aflame, 
And dumb with grateful wonder to behold 
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold ! 



"THEY'RE DEAE FISH TO ME." 

The farmer's wife sat at the door, 

A pleasant sight to see ; 
And blithesome were the wee, wee bairns 

That played around her knee. 

When, bending 'neath her heavy creel, 

A poor fish-wife came by, 
And, turning from the toilsome road, 

Unto the door drew nigh. 

She laid her burden on the green, 

And spread its scaly store, 
With trembling hands and pleading words, 

She told them o'er and o'er. 

But lightly laughed the young guidwife, 
" We're no sae scarce o' cheer ; 

Tak' up your creel, and gang your ways— 
I'll buy nae fish sae dear." 

Bending beneath her load again, 

A weary sight to see ; 
Right sorely sighed the poor fish-wife, 

" They're dear fish to me ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 35? 

" Our boat was oot ae fearfu' night, 

And when the storm blew o'er, 
My husband, and my three brave sons, 

Lay corpses on the shore. 

" I've been a wife for thirty years, 

A childless widow three ; 
I maun buy them now to sell again — 

They're dear fish to me !" 

The farmer's wife turned to the door — 

What was't upon her cheek ? 
What was there rising in her breast, 

That then she scarce could speak ? 

She thought upon her ain guidman, 

Her lightsome laddies three ; 
The woman's words had pierced her heart — 

"They're dear fish to me!" 

" Come back," she cried, with quivering voice, 

And pity's gathering tear ; 
" Come in, come in, my poor woman, 

Ye're kindly welcome here. 

" I kentna o' your aching heart, 

Your weary lot to dree ; 
I'll ne'er forget your sad, sad words: 

" They're dear fish to me !" 

Ay, let the happy-hearted learn 

To pause ere they deny 
The meed of honest toil, and think 

How much their gold may buy — 

How much of manhood's wasted strength, 

What woman's misery — 
What breaking hearts might swell the cry : 

" They're dear fish to me !" 



THE GRASP OF THE DEAD. 

'Twas the battle-field, and the cold pale moon 
Looked down on the dead and dying; 

And the wind passed o'er with a dirge and a wail, 
Where the young and brave were lying. 



358 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

With his father's sword in his red, right hand, 

And the hostile dead around him, 
Lay a youthful chief; but his bed was the ground, 

And the grave's icy sleep had bound him. 

Drawn by the shine of the warrior's sword, 

A soldier paused beside it ; 
He wrenched the hand with a giant's strength, 

But the grasp of the dead defied it. 

He loosed his hold, and his swelling heart 
Took part with the dead before him ; 

And he honored the brave who died sword in hand, 
As with softened brow he leaned o'er him. 

"A soldier's death thou hast boldly died, 

A soldier's grave won by it ; 
Before I would take that sword from thine hand, 

My own life's blood should dye it. 

" Thou shalt not be left for the carrion crow, 

Or the wolf, to batten o'er thee ; 
Or the coward insult the gallant dead, 

Who in life had trembled before thee." 

Then dug he a grave in the crimson earth, 

Where his warrior-foe was sleeping ; 
And he laid him there in honor and rest, 

With his sword in his own brave keeping ! 

Z, JE. L. {Mrs. Maclean) 



THE SLAVE'S PETITION. 

It was an aged man, who stood beside the blue Atlantic sea; 

They cast his fetters by the flood, and hailed the time-worn 
captive free ; 

From his indignant eye there flashed a gleam his better na- 
ture gave ; 

And while his tyrants shrank abashed, thus spoke the spirit- 
stricken slave : 

"Bring back the chain, whose weight so long these tortured 

limbs have vainly borne ; 
The word of freedom from your tongue, my weary ear rejects 

with scorn ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 359 

'Tis true, there was — there was a time, I sighed, I panted to 

be free, 
And pining for my Southern clime, bowed down my stubborn 

knee. 

" There I have stretched my yearning arms, and shook in 
wrath my galley chain, — 

There, when the magic word had charms, I groaned for lib- 
erty, in vain ! 

That freedom ye at length bestow, and bid me bless my 
envied fate ; 

Ye tell me I am free to go — where ? I am desolate ! 

" The boundless hope — the spring of joy, felt when the spirit's 

strength is young ; 
"Which slavery only can alloy — the mockeries to which I 

clung ; 
The eyes, whose fond and sunny ray made life's dull lamp 

less dimly burn, 
The tones I pined for day by day — can ye bid them return ? 

" Bring back the chain ! — its clanking sound hath now a 

power beyond your own ; 
It brings young visions smiling round, too fondly loved — 

too early flown ! 
It brings me days when these dim eyes gazed o'er the wild 

and swelling sea, 
Counting how many suns must rise ere one might hail me free ! 

" Bring back the chain ! that I may think 'tis that which 

weighs my spirit so ; 
And, gazing on each galling link, dream— as I dreamt — of 

bitter woe ! 
My days are gone ; — of hope, of youth, these traces now 

alone remain — 
(Hoarded with sorrow's sacred truth) — tears, and my iron 

chain ! 

Freedom ! — though doomed in pain to live, the freedom of 

the soul is mine ; 
But all of slavery you could give, around my steps must ever 

twine. ' 

Raise up the head which age hath bent, renew the hopes 

that childhood gave, 
Bid all return kind heaven once lent ; — till then — I am a slave ! 

Mrs. Norton, 



560 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 



ORESOENTIUS. 

I looked upon his brow ; — no sign 

Of guilt or fear was there ; 
He stood as proud by that death-shrine, 

As even o'er despair 
He had a power; in his eye 
There was a quenchless energy — 

A spirit that could dare 
The deadliest form that death could take, 
And dare it for the daring's sake. 

He stood, the fetters on his hand — 

He raised them haughtily ; 
And had that grasp been on the brand, 

It could not wave on high 
With freer pride than it waved now : 
Around he looked, with changeless brow, 

On many a torture nigh — 
The rack, the chain, the axe, the wheel, 
And, worst of all, his own red steel! 

I saw him once before ; he rode 

Upon a coal-black steed, 
And tens of thousands thronged the road, 

And bade their warrior speed. 
His helm, his breast-plate, were of gold, 
And graved with many a dent, that told 

Of many a soldier's deed ; 
The sun shone on his sparkling mail, 
And danced his snow-plume in the gale. 

But now he stood, chained and alone ; 

The headsman by his side ; 
The plume, the helm, the charger gone ; 

The sword that had defied 
The mightiest, lay broken near ; 
And yet no sign or sound of fear 

Came from that lip of pride; 
And never king or conqueror's brow 
More higher look, than his did now. 

He bent beneath the head-man's stroke 
With an uncovered eye ; 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 361 

A wild shout from the numbers broke, 

That thronged to see him die. 
It was a people's loud acclaim, 
The voice of anger and of shame — 

A nation's funeral cry ; — 
Rome's wail above her only son, 
Her patriot — and her latest one ! 

L. E. L. (Mrs. Maclean.) 



HARMOSAN. 



Now the third and fatal conflict for the Persian throne was 

done, 
And the Moslem's fiery valor had the crowning victory 

won: 
Harmosan, the last of foemen, and the boldest to defy, 
Captive, overborne by numbers, they were bringing forth to 

die. 

Then exclaimed that noble Satrap, "Lo, I perish in my 
thirst ; 

Give me but one drink of water, and let then arrive the 
worst." — 

In his hand he took the goblet, but awhile the draught for- 
bore, 

Seeming doubtfully the purpose of the victors to explore. 

" But what fear'st thou ?" cried the Caliph : " dost thou dread 
a secret blow? 

Fear it not ; our gallant Moslems no such treacherous deal- 
ings know. 

Thou mayst quench thy thirst securely ; for thou shalt not 
die before 

Thou hast drunk that cup of water : this reprieve is thine — 
no more." 

Quick the Satrap dashed the goblet down to earth with ready- 
hand, 

And the liquid sunk, — forever lost, amid the burning sand : 

" Thou hast said that mine my life is, till the water of that 
cup 

I have drained : — then bid thy servants that spilled water 
gather up ! 



362 THE PATKIOTIC SPEAKER. 

For a moment stood the Caliph, as by doubtful passions 

stirred : 
Then exclaimed, " For ever sacred must remain a Monarch's 

word. 
Bring forth another cup and straightway to the noble Persian 

give : — 
Drink, I said before, and perish ; — now, I bid thee drink and 

live !" 



WAR SONG OF THE GREEK. 

Awake ! 'tis the terror of war ! 

The crescent is tossed on the wind ; 
But our flag flies on high, like the perilous star 

Of the battle, before and behind, 
Wherever it glitters, it darts 
Bright death into tyrannous hearts. 

Who are they that now bid us be slaves ? 

They are foes to the good and the free ; 
Go, bid them first fetter the might of the waves ! 

The sea may be conquered ; but we 
Have spirits untameable still 
And the strength to be free, — and the will ! 

The Helots are come : In their eyes 

Proud hate and fierce massacre burn ; 
They hate us, — but shall they despise ? 

They are come; shall they ever return? 
O God of the Greeks ! from thy throne 
Look down, and we'll conquer alone ! 

Our fathers, — each man was a god, 

His will was a law, and the sound 
Of his voice, like a spirit's, was worshipped : he trod, 

And thousands fell worshippers round : 
From the gates of the West to the Sun 
He bade, and his bidding was done. 

And we — shall we die in our chains, 

Who once were as free as the wind ? 
Who is it that threatens, — who is it arraigns ? 

Are they princes of Europe or Ind ? 
Are they kings to the uttermost pole ? 
They are dogs, with a taint on their soul ! 

Barry Cornwall* 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 863 



THE FALL OF D'ASSAS. 

Alone through gloomy forest shades, a soldier went by 
night, 

No moon-beam pierced the dusky glades, no star shed guid- 
ing light. 

Yet, on his vigil's midnight round, the youth all cheerly 

passed ; 
Unchecked by aught of boding sound, that muttered in the 

blast. 

Where were his thoughts that lonely hour ? — In his far home, 

perchance — 
His father's hall — his mother's bower, 'midst the gay vines 

of France. 



Hush ! hark ! did stealing steps go by ? came not faint whis- 
pers near ? 

No ! — the wild wind hath many a sigh, amidst the foliage 
sere. 

Hark ! yet again ! — and from his hand, what grasp hath 
wrenched the blade ? 

O, single, 'midst a hostile band, young soldier, thou'rt be- 
trayed ! 

"Silence!" in under-tones they cry; "No whisper — not a 

breath ! 
The sound that warns thy comrades nigh shall sentence thee 

to death !" 

Still at the bayonet's point he stood, and strong to meet the 

blow ; 
And shouted, 'midst his rushing blood, " Arm ! — arm ! — Au- 

vergne — the foe !" 

The stir — the tramp — the bugle-call — he heard their tumults 

grow; _ 
And sent his dying voice through all — "Auvergne! Au- 

vergne ! the foe !" 

Mrs. Hemans. 



364 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE DYING SOLDIER. 

The tumult of battle had ceased — high in air 
The standard of Britain triumphantly waved; 

And the remnant of foes had all fled in despair, 

Whom, nigftt intervening, from slaughter had saved ; 

When a veteran was seen, by the light of his lamp, 
Slow-pacing the bounds of the carcass-strown plain, 

Not base his intent, — for he quitted his camp 
To comfort the dying, not plunder the slain. 

Though dauntless in war, at a story of woe 

Down his age-furrowed cheeks the warm tears often ran; 
Alike proud to conquer, or spare a brave foe, 

He fought like a hero ! — but felt like a man ! 

As he counted the slain, — "Ah, conquest!" he cried, 

"Thou art glorious, indeed, but how dearly thou'rt won !" 

" Too dearly, alas !" a voice faintly replied — 

It thrilled through his heart ! — 'twas the voice of his son ! 

He listened aghast ! — all was silent again ; 

He searched by the beams which his lamp feebly shed, 
And found his brave son amid hundreds of slain, 

The corse of a comrade supporting his head. 

" My Henry !" the sorrowful parent exclaimed, 
" Has fate rudely withered thy laurels so soon ?" 

The youth oped his eyes, as he heard himself named, 
And awoke for awhile from his death-boding swoon. 

He gazed on his father, who knelt by his side, 

And, seizing his hand, pressed it close to his heart ; 

"Thank heaven ! thou art here, my dear father !" he cried; 
"For scon, ah, too soon, we forever must part! 

"Though death early calls me from all that I love, 
From glory, from thee, yet perhaps 'twill be given 

To meet thee again in yon regions above !" 

His eyes beamed with hope, as he fixed them on heaven. 

"Then let not thy bosom with vain sorrow swell; 

Ah ! check, ere it rises, the heart-rending sigh ! 
I fought for my king — for my country ! — I fell 

In defence of their rights : and I glory to die !" 



POETICAL EXTKACTS. 365 



ODE FOE INDEPENDENCE. 

When Freedom, 'midst the battle storm, 

Her weary head reclined, 
And round her' fair, majestic form, 

Oppression fain had 'twined, 
Amid the din beneath the cloud, 

Great Washington appeared, 
With daring hand rolled back the shroud, 

And thus the sufferer cheered : 

" Spurn, spurn despair ! be great, be free ! 

With giant strength arise ; 
Stretch, stretch thy pinions, Liberty, 

Thy flag plant in the skies ! 
Clothe, clothe thyself in Glory's robe, 

Let stars thy banner gem ; 
Rule, rule the sea — possess the globe — 

Wear Victory's diadem ! 

Go and proclaim a world is born, 

Another orb gives light ; 
Another sun illumes the morn, 

Another star the night ; 
Be just, be brave ! and let thy name 

Henceforth Columbia be ; 
And wear the oaken weath of fame, 

The wreath of Liberty." 

He said — and lo ! the stars of night 

Forth to her banner flew ; 
And morn, with pencil dipp'd in light, 

Her blushes on it drew ; 
Columbia's eagle seized the prize, 

And, gloriously unfurled, 
Soared with it to his native skies, 

And waved it o'er the world. 



BOADIOEA, 



When the British warrior-queen, 
Bleeding from the Roman rods, 

Sought, with an indignant mien, 
Counsel of her country's gods, 



366 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Sage, beneath a spreading oak, 
Sat the Druid, hoary chief, 

Ev'ry burning word he spoke, 
Full of rage, and full of grief. 

" Princess, if our aged eyes 

"Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, 

'Tis because resentment ties 
All the terrors of our tongues. 

" Rome shall perish ! write that word 
In the blood that she has spilt ; 

Perish, hopeless and abhorred, 
Deep in ruin, as in guilt ! 

" Rome, for empire far renowned, 
Tramples on a thousand states ; 

Soon her pride shall kiss the ground — 
Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates ! 

" Other Romans shall arise, 
Heedless of a soldier's name ; 

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, 
Harmony the path to fame ! 

" Then, the progeny that springs 
From the forests of our land, 

Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings, 
Shall a wider world command. 

" Regions Caesar never knew, 
Thy posterity shall sway ; 

Where his eagles never flew, 
None invincible as they!" 

Such the bard's prophetic words, 
Pregnant with celestial fire, 

Bending as he swept the chords 
Of his sweet but awful lyre. 

She, with all a monarch's pride, 
Felt them in her bosom glow ; 

Rush'd to battle, fought, and died, — 
Dying, hurled them on the foe! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 367 

" Ruffians ! pitiless as proud, 

Heav'n awards the vengeance due, 

Empire is on us bestowed, 

Shame and ruin wait for you !" 

Cowper. 



THE DYING ARCHER. 

The day has near ended, the light quivers through 
The leaves of the forest, which bend with the dew ; 
The flowers bow in beauty, the smooth flowing stream, 
Its gliding as softly as thoughts in a dream ; 
The low room is darkened, there breathes not a sound, 
While friends in their sadness are gathering around ; 
Now out speaks the Archer, his course well nigh done, 
" Throw, throw back the lattice, and let in the sun !" 

The lattice is opened ; and now the blue sky 

Brings joy to his bosom, and fire to his eye ; 

There stretches the greenwood, where, year after year, 

He " chased the wild roe-buck and followed the deer." 

He gazed upon mountain, and forest, and dell, 

Then bowed he in sorrow, a silent farewell : 

" And when we are parted, and when thou art dead, 

Oh where shall we lay thee ?" his followers said. 

Then up rose the Archer, and gazed once again 
On far-reaching mountain, and river, and plain ; 
" Now bring me my quiver, and tighten my bow, 
And let the winged arrow my sepulchre show !" 
Out, out through the lattice, the arrow has passed, 
And in the far forest has lighted at last, 
And there shall the hunter in slumber be laid, 
Where wild-deer are bounding beneath the green shade. 

His last words are finished ; his spirit has fled, 
And now lies in silence the form of the dead ; 
The lamps in the chamber are flickering dim, 
And sadly the mourners are chaunting their hymn ; 
And now to the greenwood, and now on the sod, 
Where lighted the arrow, the mourners have trod ; 
And thus by the river, where dark forests wave, 
That noble old Archer hath found him a grave ! 

B. C. Waterston. 



368 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE WORLD POR SALE. 

The world for sale ! Hang out the sign ; 

Call every traveller here to me : 
Who'll buy this brave estate of mine, 

And set this weary spirit free ? 
'Tis going ! yes, I mean to fling 

. The bauble from my soul away ; 
I'll sell it, whatsoe'er it bring ; 

The world at auction here to-day ! 

It is a glorious sight to see, 

But, ah ! it has deceived me sore ; 
It is not what it seems to be, 

For sale ! it shall be mine no more. 
Come, turn it o'er, and view it well ; 

I would not have you purchase dear ; 
'Tis going ! going ! I must sell ! 

Who bids ? who'll buy the splendid tear 

Here's wealth in glittering heaps of gold; 

Who bids ? But let me tell you fair, 
A baser lot was never sold ! 

Who'll buy the heavy heaps of care? 
And here, spread out in broad domain, 

A goodly landscape all may trace, 
Hall, cottage, tree, field, hill and plain ; — 

Who'll buy himself a burying-place ? 

Here's love, the dreamy potent spell 

That beauty flings around the heart ; 
I know its power, alas ! too well ; 

'Tis going ! Love and I must part ! 
Must part ? What can I more with love ? 

All over's the enchanter's reign. 
Who'll buy the plumeless, dying dove, — 

A breath of bliss, a storm of pain ? 

And, friendship, rarest gem of earth; 

Who e'er has found the jewel his? 
Frail, fickle, false and little worth, 

Who bids for friendship — as it is? 
'Tis going ! going ! hear the call ; 

Once, twice, and thrice, 'tis very low! 
'Twas once my hope, my stay, my all, 

But now the broken staff must go ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. ' 369 

Fame ! hold the brilliant meteor high ; 

How dazzling every gilded name ! 
Ye millions ! now's the time to buy, 

How much for fame? how much for fame? 
Hear how it thunders ! would you stand 

On high Olympus, far renowned, 
Now purchase, and a world command — 

And be with a world's curses crowned! 

Sweet star of hope !" with ray to shine 

In every sad foreboding breast, 
Save this desponding one of mine, — 

Who bids for man's last friend and best ? 
Ah ! were not mine a bankrupt life, 

This treasure should my soul sustain ! 
But hope and care are now at strife, 

Nor ever may unite again. 

Ambition ! fashion, show and pride, 

I part from all forever now ; 
Grief, in an overwhelming tide, 

Has taught my haughty heart to bow. 
By death, stern sheriff! all bereft, 

I weep, yet humbly kiss the rod ; 
The best of all I still have left, — 

My faith, my Bible and my God ! O 

Rev. Ralph Hoyt. [ 



THE VAGABONDS. 

We are two travellers, Roger and I, 

Roger's my dog. — Come here you scamp ! 
Jump for the gentleman, — mind your eye ! 

Over the table, — look out for the lamp ! — 
The rogue is growing a little old ; 

Five years we've tramped through wind and weather, 
And slept out doors when nights were cold, 

And ate and drank — and starved — together. 

We've learned what comfort is, I tell you ! 

A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, 
A fire to thaw our thumbs, (poor fellow ! 

The paw he holds up there's been frozen;) 

Plenty of catgut for my fiddle, 
(This out-door business is bad for strings,) 

Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, 
And Roger and I set up for kings ! 



370 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

No, thank ye, sir, — I never drink ; 

Roger and I are exceedingly moral, — 
Are'nt we, Roger ? — See him wink ! — 

Well, something hot, then, — we won't quarrel. 
He's thirsty, too, — see him nod his head ? 

What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk ! 
He understands every word that's said, — 

And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk ! 

The truth is, sir, now I reflect, 

I've been so sadly given to grog, 
I wonder I've not lost the respect, 

(Here's to you, sir !) even of my dog. 
But he sticks by, through thick and thin; 

And this old coat, with its empty pockets, 
And rags that smell of tobacco and gin, 

He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets. 

There isn't another creature living 

Would do it, and prove, through every disaster, 
So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving, 

To such a miserable, thankless master ! 
No, sir !— see him wag his tail and grin ! 

By George ! it makes my old eyes water ! 
That is, there's something in this gin 

That chokes a fellow. But no matter! 

\ 

f 
We'll have some music, if you're willing, 

And Roger here (what a plague a cough is, sir) 
Shall march a little — Start, you villain ! . 

Paws up! Eyes front! Salute your officer ! 
'Bout face ! Attention ! Take your rifle ! 

(Some dogs have arms, you see !) Now hold your 
Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle, 

To aid a poor old patriot soldier ! 

March ! Halt ! Now show how the rebel shakes 

When he stands up to hear his sentence. 
Now tell us how many drams it takes 

To honor a jolly new acquaintance ! 
Five yelps — that's five; he's mighty knowing! 

The night's before us, fill the glasses! — 
Quick, sir ! I'm ill, — my brain is going ! — 

Some brandy, — thank you, — there ! — it passes ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 371 

Why not reform ? That's easily said ; 

But I've gone through such wretched treatment, 
Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread, 

And scarce remembering what meat meant, 
That my poor stomach's past reform ; 

And there are times when, mad with thinking, 
I'd sell out heaven for something warm 

To prop a horrible inward sinking. 

Is there a way to forget to think? 

At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends, 
A dear girl's love, — but I took to drink ; 

The same old story; you know how it ends. 
If you could have seen these classic features, — 

You needn't laugh, sir ; they were not then 
Such a burning libel on God's creatures; 

I was one of your handsome men ! 

If you had seen her, so fair and young, 

Whose head was happy on this breast ! 
If you could have heard the songs I sung 

When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed 
That ever I, sir, should be straying 

From door to door with fiddle and dog, 
Ragged, and penniless, and playing 

To you to-night for a glass of grog! 

She's married since, — a parson's wife ; 

'Twas better for her that we should part ; — 
Better the soberest, prosiest life 

Than a basted home and a broken heart. 
I have seen her? Once: I was weak and spent 

On the dusty road : a carriage stopped ; 
But little she dreamed, as on she went, 

Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped ! 

You've set me talking, sir; I'm sorry; 

It makes me wild to think of the change ! 
What do you care for a beggar's story ? 

Is it amusing? you find it strange? 
I had a mother so proud of me ! 

'Twas well she died before — Do you know 
If the happy spirits in heaven can see 

The ruin and wretchedness here below ? 



372 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Another glass, and strong, to deaden 

This pain ; then Roger and I will start. 
I wonder has he such a lumpish, leaden, 

Aching thing, in place of a heart? 
He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could, 

ISTo doubt remembering things that were, — 
A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food, 

And himself a sober respectable cur. 

I'm better now, that glass was warming. — 

You rascal ! limber your lazy feet ! 
We must be fiddling and performing 

For supper and bed, or starve in the street. — 
Not a very gay life to lead, you think? 

But soon we shall go where lodgings are. free, 
And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink; — 

The sooner the better for Roger and me. 

J. T, Trowbridge* 



THE CUMBEBLAND. 

At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, 

On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of- war; 
And at times from the fortress across the bay 
The alarum of drums swept past, 
Or a bugle blast 
From the camp on the shore. 

Then far away to the south uprose 

A little feather of snow-white smoke, 
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes 
Was steadily steering its course, 
To try the force, 
Of our ribs of oak. 

Down upon us heavily runs, 

Silent and sullen, the floating fort ; 
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, 
And leaps the terrible death, 
With fiery breath, 
From each open port. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 

We are not idle, but send her straight 

Defiance back in a full broadside { 
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, 
Rebounds our heavier hail 
From each iron scale 
Of the monster's hide. 

" Strike your flag !" the rebel cries, 

In his arrogant old plantation strain. 
" Never !" pur. gallant Morris replies ; 
" It is better to sink than to yield !" 
And the whole air pealed 
With the cheers of the men. 

Then, like a kraken huge and black, 

She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp ! 
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, 
With a sudden shudder of death, 
And the cannon's breath 
For her dying gasp 

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, 

Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head. 
Lord, how beautiful was thy day! 
Every waft of the air 
Was a whisper of prayer, 
Or a dirge for the dead. 

Ho ! brave hearts that went down in the seas ! 

Ye are at peace in the troubled stream, 
Ho ! brave land ! with hearts like these, 
Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
Shall be one again, 
And without a seam ! — H. W. Longfellow, 



<m 



THE BOY OF KATISBOff. 

You know we French stormed Ratisbon; 

A mile or so away, 
On a little mound, Napoleon 

Stood on our storming day ; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 

Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 

Oppressive with its mind. 



3fr4 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

Just as perhaps he mused, " My plans 

That soar, to earth may fall 
Let once ray army-leader Larmes 

Waver at yonder wall ;" 
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 

A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew 

Until he reached the mound. 

Then off there flung in smiling joy, 

And held himself erect 
Just by his horse's mane, a boy ; 

You hardly could suspect — 
(So tight he kept his lips compressed, 

Scarce any blood came through) — 
You looked twice e'er you saw his breast 

Was all but shot in two. 

" Well," cried he, " Emperor, by God's grace 

We've got you Ratisbon ! 
The marshal's in the market-place, 

And you'll be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 

Where I, to hearths desire, 
Perched him." The chief's eye flashed ; his plans 

Soared up again like fire. 

The chief's eye flashed ; but presently 

Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle's eye 

When her bruised eaglet breathes ; 
" You're wounded !" " Nay," his soldier's pride 

Touched to the quick, he said : 
"I'm killed, sire !" And, his chief beside, 

Smiling, the boy fell dead. 

JR. Browning, 



THE PATBIOT'S ELYSIUM. 

There is a land, of every land the pride, 
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside ; 
Where brighter suns dispense serener light, 
A.nd milder moons im paradise the night ; 
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth, 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 3*75 

Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth. 

The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 

The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, 

Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, 

Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air ; 

In every clime, the magnet of his soul, 

Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole ; 

For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace, 

The heritage of nature's noblest race, 

There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 

A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, 

Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside 

His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride ; 

While, in his softened looks, benignly blend 

The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend. 

Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter, wife, 

Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life. 

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, 

An angel guard of loves and graces lie ; 

Around her knees domestic duties meet, 

And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. 

Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found ? 

Art thou a man ? — a patriot ? — look around ! 

Oh ! thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, 

That land thy country, and that spot thy home. 

Montgomery, 



CLEAR THE WAY. 



Men of thought ! be up, and stirring night and day; 

Sow the seed — withdraw the curtain — clear the way 

Men of action, aid and cheer them, as ye may ! 
There's a fount about to stream, 
There's a light about to beam, 
There's a warmth about to glow, 
There's a flower about to blow ; 

There's a midnight blackness changing into gray. 

Men of thought and men of action, clear the way ! 

Once the welcome light has broken, who shall say 
What the unimagined glories of the day? 
What the evil that shall perish in its ray ? 

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; 

Aid it, hopes of honest men ; 



3^(5 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Aid it, paper ; aid it, type ; 

Aid it, for the hour is ripe, 
And our earnest must not slacken into play. 
Men of thought and men of action, clear the way ! 

Lo ! a cloud's about to vanish from the day ; 

And a brazen wrong to crumble into clay. 

Lo ! the right's about to conquer ; clear the way ! 

With the right shall many more 

Enter smiling at the door ; 

With the giant wrong shall fall 

Many others, great and small, 
That for ages long have held us for their prey. 
Men of thought and men of action, clear the way ! 

Charles MacJcay. 



THE THE.EE BEATS. 

Roll — roll ! — How gladly swell the distant notes, 
From where, on high, yon starry pennon floats! 

Roll — roll ! — On, gorgeously they come, 
With plumes low stooping, on their winding way, 
With lances gleaming in the sun's bright ray ; — 
" What do ye hear, my merry comrades, say?" 

" We beat the gathering drum ; 
'Tis this which gives to mirth a lighter tone, 
To the young soldier's cheek a deeper glow, 
When stretched upon his grassy couch, alone, 
It steals upon his ear,— this martial call 
Prompts him to dreams of gorgeous war, with all 

Its pageantry and show !" 

Roll— roll !— " What is it that ye beat ?" 

"We sound the charge! — On with the courser fleet !- 

Where, 'mid the columns, war's red eagles fly, 

We swear to do or die !— 
'Tis this which feeds the fires of fame with breath, 
Which steels the soldier's heart to deeds of death ; 

And when his hand, , 
Fatigued with slaughter, pauses- o'er the slain, 
'Tis this which prompts him madly once again 

To seize the bloody brand !" 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 37f 

Roll — roll ! — " Brothers, what do ye bear 

Slowly and sadly as ye pass along, 

With your dull march and low funereal song?" 

" Comrades ! Ave bear a bier! 

I saw him fall ! 
And, as he lay beneath his steed, one thought, 
(Strange how the mind such fancy should have wrought !) 
That had he died beneath his native skies, 
Perhaps some gentle bride had closed his eyes, 

And wept beside his pall !" 

G. W. Patten. 



THE GEEAT BELL ROLAND. 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! 
— High in St. Bavon's tower, 
At midnight hour, 
The great bell Roland spoke, 
And all who slept in Ghent awoke. 
— What meant its iron stroke ? 
Why caught each man his blade ? 
Why the hot haste he made ? 
Why echoed every street 
With tramp of thronging feet — 
All flying to the city's wall ? 
It was the cally 
Known well to all, 

That Freedom stood in peril of some foe 
And even timid hearts grow bold, 
Whenever Roland tolled, 
And every hand a sword could hold ;-— 
For men 

Were patriots then, 
Three hundred years ago ! 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! 
Bell never yet was hung, 
Between whose lips there swung 
So true and brave a tongue ! 
— If men be patriots still, 

At thy first sound 

True hearts will bound, 
Great souls will thrill — 



Z*13 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Then toll ! and wake the test 

In each man's breast, 

And let hiin stand confessed ! 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! 
— Not in St. Bavon's tower, 
At midnight hour, — 

Nor by the Scheldt, nor far off Zuyder Zee ; 
But here — this side the sea! — 
And here, in broad, bright day ! 

Toll! Roland, toll! 
For not by night awaits 
A brave foe at the gates, 

But Treason stalks abroad — inside! — at noon! 
Toll ! Thy alarm is not too soon ! 
To arms ! Ring out the Leader's call! 
Re-echo it from East to West, 
Till every dauntless breast 
Swell beneath plume and crest ! 
Till swords from scabbards leap ! 
— What tears can widows weep 
Less bitter than when brave men fall? 
t Toll ! Roland, toll ! 

Till cottager from cottage- wall 

Snatch pouch and powder-horn and gun — 

The heritage of -sire to son, 

Ere half of Freedom's work was done ! 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! 
Till son, in memory of his sire, 
Once more shall load and fire ! 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! 
Till volunteers'find out the art 
Of aiming at a traitor's heart ! 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! 

— St. Bavon's stately tower 

Stands to this hour, — 

And by its side stands Freedom yet in Ghent; 
For when the bells now ring, 
Men shout, " God save the king !" 

Until the air is rent! . 

— Amen ! — So let it be ; 

For a true king is he 

Who keeps his people free. 
Toll ! Roland, toll ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 3^9 

This side the sea ! 

No longer they, but we, 

Have now such need of thee ! 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! 
And let thy iron throat 
Ring out its warning note, 
Till Freedom's perils be outbraved, 
And Freedom's flag, wherever waved, 
Shall overshadow none enslaved! 
Toll ! till from either ocean's strand, 
Brave men shall clasp each other's hand, 
And shout, " God save our native land !" 
— And love the land which God hath saved ! 

Toll ! Roland, toU ! 

Theodore Tilton. 



kTHE RISING. 
he drum's wild, roar awakes the land; the fife is calling 
shrill ; 
en thousand starry banners blaze on town, and bay, and 
hill ; 
Our crowded streets are throbbing with the soldier's meas- 
ured tramp ; 
Among our bladed corn-fields gleam the white tents of the 

camp. 
The thunders of the rising war hush labor's drowsy hum, 
And heavy to the ground the first dark drops of battle come. 
The souls of men flame up anew ; the narrow heart expands ; 
And woman brings her patient faith to nerve her eager hands. 
Thank God ! we are not buried yet, though long in trance 

we lay ; 
Thank God ! the fathers need not blush to own their sons to- 
day. 

Oh ! sad and slow the weeks went by ; each held his anxious 

breath ; 
Like one who waits, in helpless fear, some sorrow great as 

death. 
Oh! scarcely was there faith in God, nor any trust in man, 
While fast along the Southern sky the blighting shadow ran. 
It veiled the stars, one after one ; it hushed the patriot's song; 
And stole from men the sacred sense that parteth right and 

wrong:. 



380 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Then a red flash — the lightning across the darkness broke, 
And with a voice that shook the land, the guns of Sumter 

spoke : 
Wake ! sons of heroes, wake ! the age of heroes dawns again ; 
Truth takes in hand her ancient sword, and calls her loyal 

men. 
Lo ! brightly o'er the breaking day shines Freedom's holy 

star, 
Peace cannot cure the sickly time. All hail the healer, War ! 

And wheresoe'er the summons came, there rose an angry din, 
As when upon a rocky coast a stormy tide comes in. 
Straightway the fathers gathered voice, straightway the sons 

arose, 
With flushing cheek, as when the east with day's red current 

glows. 
Hurrah ! the long despair is past ; our fading hopes renew ; 
The fog is lifting from the land, and lo ! the ancient blue! 
We learn the secret of the deeds the sires have handed down, 
To fire the youthful soldier's zeal, and tend his green renown. 
Who lives for country, through his arm feels all her forces 

flow, 
'Tis easy to be brave for truth, as for the rose to blow. 

Full many a heart is aching, with mingled joy and pain, 
For those who go so proudly forth, and may not come again; 
And many a heart is aching for those it leaves behind, 
As a thousand tender histories throng in upon the mind. 
The old men praise the young men, and praise their bearing 

high ; 
The women in the doorways stand to wave them bravely by. 
One threw her arms about her boy, and said, " Good bye, 

my son ; 
God help thee do the valiant deeds thy father would have 

done." 
One held up to a bearded man a little child to kiss, 
And said, U I shall not be alone, for thy dear love and this." 
And one, a rosebud in her hand, leant at a soldier's side ; 
" Thy country weds thee first," she said ; " be I thy second 

bride." 

So out of shop and farm-house, from shore and inland glen, 
Thick as the bees in clover time, are swarming armed men; 
Along the dusty roads in haste the eager columns come, 
With flash of sword and muskets' gleam, the bugle and the 
drum. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 381 

Ho ! comrades ! see the starry flag, broad waving at our head ; 
Ho ! comrades ! mark the tender light on the dear emblems 

spread ! 
Our fathers' blood has hallowed it; 'tis part of their renown; 
And palsied be the caitiff hand would pluck its glories down! 
Hurrah ! hurrah ! it is our home where'er thy colors fly ; 
We win with thee the victory, or in thy shadow die ! 

Hurrah ! the drums are beating ; the fife is calling shrill ; 
Ten thousand starry banners flame on town, and bay, and 

hill; 
The thunders of the rising war drown labor's peaceful hum ; 
Thank God ! that we have lived to see the saffron morning 

come — 
The morning of the battle-call, to every soldier dear ! 
Oh, joy ! the cry is " Forward !" Oh, joy ! the foe is near ! 
For all the crafty men of peace have failed to purge the 

kland ; 
Hurrah ! the ranks of battle close ! God takes his cause in 
hand ! — Elbridge Jefferson Cutler. 



THE REPUBLIC. 



" No more !" 
Thus sigh the Eastern winds, 

As o'er the sea they come, 
And waft their murmurs deep 

To Freedom's radiant home; 
The sad waves die away 

Along the ocean strand, 
And whisper low, "No more ! 

No more! O glorious land!" 



» 



" No more ?" a voice replied, 

" What meaning words are these ? 
A nation oft may pass 

Through red and bloody seas ! 
Through fierce baptismal fires, 

Through nights that have no ray, 
God's people oft must pass, 

To win unclouded day. 
O Prophet of the world's deep woe ! 

O Prophet at the gloomy sshrine ! 



382 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Invoke its mystery, and show 

The future, if thou canst divine !" 

A solemn tone, 
That died along the New World's shore, 

Brought back alone 
The Prophet's words, " No more !" 

" O Prophet of the world's deep woe ! 

Is this the answer from thy shrine ? 
Wait till the morrow — thou shalt know 

That Freedom hath a life divine ! 
The sun shall stand in heaven to-day, 

Nor set once more on hill or plain, 
While freemen strike, and toil, and pray, 

Till Freedom lives in bliss again !" 

And still the Prophet said, 

" The nation now is dead ! 
The great Republic is no more !" 

Star after star went down ; . • 

The flag was trailed in dust ; 
And chiefs of old renown 

Forsook their ancient trust ; 
It seemed too true, 

As the Prophet said, 

That the life had sped, 

And the soul was dead, 
And the nation lived no more ! 

And e'en when Sumter fell, 
The heart beat silent with its doubt, 

A moment only— for the spell 
Was broken by the freeman's shout. 

" To arms ! to arms !" they cry ; 
" Defend that flag, or die !" 
" To arms !" amid their tears ; 
" To arms !" as in the years 
When heroes saw the field of battle nigh 
" To arms !" replied the hills ; 
" To arms !" the mountains grand ; 
" To arms, let him who wills !" 

Swept o'er the freeman's land ; 
It leaped from hill to hill, 

It shook the mountain crag, 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 383 

For love's electric thrill 
Still kept the starry flag ; 

" To arms !" replied the plains, 
The hot blood throbbing through the veins, 

For millions rallied with the vow, 

" We strike for freedom surely now ; 
In heaven's great name the damning wrong shall bow ! w 

" She lives !" the freeman cried ; 
" She lives !" my heart replied ; 
" She lives !" rolled o'er the plain, 

And thrilled the waking land, 
That caught it back again 

From mountains old and grand ; 
And starry banners waved 

From peak, and dome, and spire, 
The flag of love and peace, 

And glory's quenchless fire. 

O toiling millions on the Old World's shore ! 

Look up, rejoicing, for she is not dead ! 
The soul is living as it lived before. 

When sainted heroes spurned the tyrants tread ; 
The strife is earnest, and the day wears on, 

And angels tremble at the mighty blow- 
Beyond the conflict is a glorious dawn, 

A rapturous birth of Freedom out of woe ; 
The clouds may gather, and the storm be long, 

And lightnings leap across the darkened sky, 
But Freedom lives to triumph over wrong — 

It still will live, for Truth shall never die ! 

Wm. Oland Bourne, abridged. 



THE aONFALON OF VENICE. 

The flag of Venice, which was torn, and divided among the soldiers 
in 1849, was in 1861 reunited, and presented by a deputation of Vene- 
tian patriots to Victor Emanuel. • 

The Queenly City was again by tyrant feet polluted ; — 
The stately lion of St. Mark was crowned again with shame; 

The Austrian in our ducal halls his hireling hosts recruited, 
And taunted with his grinning guns our ancient pride and 
fame! 



384 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Oppression's judges in our courts proclaimed our laws illegal, 
And plunged us from starvation into slavery that was 
worse ; — 

While from our captured citadel the great two-headed eagle 
Flew scornfully, and napped his wings above us like a curse ; 

We tore into a thousand shreds the great Venetian banner, 
And every soldier took an oath upon the shred he bore, 

To wear it safely on his heart, till God's own time and man- 
ner 
Should come, to wake our Fatherland to Liberty once more. 

We swore upon the tattered flag, no morsel to surrender, 
Unless we lay on dying bed and j)laced it in the hand 

Of son or daughter, wife or friend, or patriot defender, 
To bear it safe until the Lord gave Freedom to the land. 

We took the solemn oath with tears, and each embraced his 
brother, 

Then parted on our several ways, to exile or to death, 
Or daily martyrdom at home ; — yet, true to one another, 

To wear our razored Gonfalon until our latest breath ! 



oo 



Who died, resigned the sacred charge unto his sworn succes- 
sor ; 
Who wandered, left all other things, but kept this pledge 
alone ; 
We bore it far in other lands : and many a proud oppressor 
We smote to earth, lamenting that we could not smite our 
own. 

King Victor, by the grace of God and by the nation's choos- 
ing ! 
We hail in you the morning star that tells our dawning 
day; 
And joyfully we can unroll — all faded with the using — 
The Gonfalon of Venice, to the earliest golden ray ! 

'Tis seamed and old ; but it has felt a thousand warm hearts 
beating ; 
'Tis writ upon in blood and tears with prayers and hopes 
of man ;—r 
And where the Hosts of Liberty the battle-shock are meeting, 
The Gonfalon of Venice shall be always in the van ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 385 

With the White Cross of Savoia here we mark it as a token ; 
And beneath its folds to victory we'll steadfastly march 
on ; ■ ' 

But we charge you by our weary years of patient hope un- 
broken, 
To plant once more in Venice our glorious Gonfalon ! 

B. W.B. 



THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE. 

Weep, weep, Columbia, from thy banner fair 

The stars are falling through the darkening air ; 

Sullied thy greatness, quenched thy pomp and pride, 

In which thou deck'st thyself a noble bride ; 

Fallen thy sons, betrayed thy holy trust ; 

Thine eagle's pinions drooping to the dust ; 

From soft Pacific to Atlantic's sweep, 

The thundering cannon echoes o'er the deep, 

While martial columns tread, and blood-stained banners wave, 

Throughout the glorious land thy sons would die to save. 

Thy homes are desolate, for traitorous hands, 

Accurst and red, have snapped the Union bands 

That bound thee, many in one. Oh ! sad to tell 

Of those who fought, of thoso who fighting fell ; 

Of loved ones left, who never, never more 

Shall hear the well-known footsteps at the door. . 

No more a mother's hand in blessing rest 

Upon the head she pillowed on her breast, 

No more the father grasp with joy the boy's strong hand 

That left the pruning hook and plough for war's red brand. 

Where vultures cry, and loathsome adders creep 

'Midst the rank grass, in bloody mounds they sleep, 

In dismal swamps, where Chickahominy 

Rolls his ensanguined waters to the sea. 

On hills all battle-crowned with smoke, and red 

With kindred blood, they rest among the dead. 

Unfurl the starry banner o'er the clay 

Which gained a patriot's name and passed away, 

And not in vain have passed ; no more the slaves shall cry, 

For white-winged liberty, serene, stands smiling by. 



386 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

England, thy mighty mother o'er the main, 

Hears thy distress, thy loud and deep refrain 

Of sorrow ; and her giant heart throbs high 

When stormy mists of battle cloud the sky — 

Then heed not those who, Judas-like, again 

Would stain with blood the strong and filial chain 

Which binds thee to her side. Oh, heed them not. 

Her Prince's welcome she has not forgot. 

Her transatlantic child, in war or peace be thine 

To emulate her high renown in this far western clime. 

On the sea islands, 'mid the snowy bloom 

Of cotton flowers, ere long will cease at noon, 

And night, the driver's cry ; through tangled forests drear 

No more may bloodhound's bay fall on the ear, 

In swift pursuit of those who panting fly 

To lose their chains beneath a freer sky. 

Then haste, Columbia^ haste, the field prepare ; 

Be thine the warrior's deeds to do and dare, 

Wipe slavery's foul blot from thy escutcheon now, 

And win a conqueror's wreath to grace thy youthful brow. 

Lead on the embattled hosts ; before thy face 

The foes shall flee and find no resting place, 

Treason and anarchy shall pass away, 

And blessed peace from sea to sea hold sway. 

Thine eagle's eye, now dim, shall brighter grow, 

His blood-stained pinions glisten as the snow, 

His wounded feet and dust-clogged wings shall rise 

Glorious, exultant in his native skies, 

Emblem of thy proud state ; then doubt and danger past, 

Shalt thou in freedom's eyrie rest in peace at last. 

Mary Alice SeweU. 



THE GIFT OF GEEEN COEN. 

You shall hear how Hiawatha 
Prayed and fasted in the forest, — 
Not for greater skill in hunting, 
Not for greater craft in fishing, 
Not for triumphs in the battle, 
And renown among the warriors ; 
But for profit of the people, 
For advantage of the nations. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 387 

On the fourth day of his fisting 
In his lodge he lay exhausted ; 
From his conch of leaves and branches 
Gazing with half-open eyelids, 
Full of shadowy dreams and visions, 
On the dizzy, swimming landscape, 
On the gleaming of the water, 
On the splendor of the sunset, — 

And he saw a youth approaching 
Dressed in garments green and yellow, 
Coming through the purple twilight, 
Through the splendor of the sunset; 
Plumes of green bent o'er his forehead, 
And his hair was soft and golden. 

Standing at the open doorway, 
Long he looked at Hiawatha, 
Looked with pity and compassion 
On his wasted form and features, 
And, in accents like the sighing 
Of the south-wind in the tree-tops, 
Said he, " O, my Hiawatha ! 
All your prayers are heard in heaven. 

"From the Master of Life descending, 
I, the friend of man, Mondamin, 
Come to warn you and instruct you, 
How by struggle and by labor 
You shall gain what you have prayed for. 
Rise up from your bed of branches, 
Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me ! 
You will conquer and o'ercome me ; 
Make a bed for me to lie in, 
Where the rain may fall upon me, 
Where the sun may come and warm me ; 
Strip these garments, green and yellow, 
Strip this nodding plumage from me, 
Lay me in the earth, and make it 
Soft and loose and light above me, 

" Let no hand disturb my slumber, 
Let no weed nor worm molest me, 
Let not Kahgahgee, the raven, 
Come to haunt me and molest me ; 
Only come yourself to watch me 
Till I wake, and start and quicken, 
Till I leap into the sunshine. 
Rise, and stoutly wrestle with me !" 

Faint with famine, Hiawatha 



388 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

Started from his bed of branches 
From the twilight of his wigwam, 
Forth into the flush of sunset 
Came, and wrestled with Mondamin ; 
At his touch he felt new courage 
Throbbing in his brain and bosom, 
Felt new life and hope and vigor 
Run through every nerve and fibre. 

So they wrestled there together 
In the glory of the sunset ; 
And the more they strove and struggled, 
Stronger still grew Hiawatha. 

Round about him spun the landscape, 
Sky and forest reeled together, 
And his strong heart leaped within him, 
As the sturgeon leaps and struggles 
In a net to break its meshes ; 
Like a ring of fire around him 
Blazed and flared the red horizon, 
And a hundred suns seemed looking 
At the combat of the wrestlers. 

Suddenly upon the greensward 
All alone stood Hiawatha, 
Panting with his wild exertion, 
Palpitating with the struggle ; 
And before him, breathless, lifeless, 
Lay the youth, with hair dishevelled, 
Plumage torn, and garments tattered, 
Dead he lay there in the sunset. 

And victorious Hiawatha 
Made the grave as he commanded, 
Stripped the garments from Mondamin, 
Stripped his tattered plumage from him, 
Laid him in the earth, and made it 
Soft and loose and light above him. 

Homeward then went Hiawatha 
To the lodge of old Nokomis, 
And the seven days of his fasting 
Were accomplished and completed. 
But the place was not forgotten 
Where he wrestled with Mondamin ; 
Nor forgotten nor neglected 
Was the grave where lay Mondamin, 
Sleeping in the rain and sunshine, 
Where his scattered plumes and garments 
Faded in the rain and sunshine. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 38$ 

Day by day did Hiawatha 
Go to wait and watch beside it ; 
Kept the dark mould soft above it, 
Kept it clean from weeds and insects, 
Drove away with scoffs and shoutings, 
Kahgahgee, the king of ravens. 

Till at length a small green feather 
From the earth shot slowly upward, 
Then another and another, 
And before the summer ended 
Stood the maize in all its beauty, 
With its shining robes about it, 
And its long soft yellow tresses ; 
And in rapture Hiawatha 
Cried aloud, " It is Mondamin ! 
Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin !" 

And still later, when the autumn 
Changed the long, green leaves to yellow, 
And the soft and juicy kernels 
Grew like wampum hard and yellow, 
Then the ripened ears he gathered, 
Stripped the withered husks from off them, 
As he once had stripped the wrestler, — 
Gave the first feast of Mondamin, 
And made known unto the people 
This new gift of the Great Spirit. 

Longfellow* 



THE POLISH BOY. 

Whence come those shrieks so wild and shrill, 
That cut, like blades of steel, the air, 

Causing the creeping blood to chill 
With the sharp cadence of despair ? 

Again they come, as if a heart 

Were cleft in twain by one quick blow, 

And every string had voice apart 
To utter its peculiar woe. 

Whence came they ? from yon temple, where 
An altar, raised for private prayer, 
Now forms the warrior's marble bed, 
Who Warsaw's gallant armies led. 



S0$ THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

The dim funereal tapers throw 
A holy lustre o'er his brow, 
And burnish with their rays of light 
The mass of curls that gather bright 
Above the haughty brow and eye 
Of a young boy that's kneeling by. 

What hand is that, whose icy press 

Clings to the dead with death's own grasp, 
But meets no answering caress ? 

No thrilling fingers seek its clasp ; 
It is the hand of her whose cry 

Ran wildly late upon the air, 
When the dead warrior met her eye 

Outstretched upon the altar there. 

With pallid lip and stony brow, 
She murmurs forth her anguish now. 
But hark ! the tramp of heavy feet 
Is heard along the bloody street ! 
Nearer and nearer yet they come, 
With clanking arms and noiseless drum. 
Now whispered curses, low and deep, 
Around the holy temple creep ; — 
The gate is burst ! a ruffian band 
Rush in and savagely demand, 
With brutal voice and oath profane, 
The startled boy for exile's chain ! 

The mother sprang with gesture wild, 
And to her bosom clasped her child ; 
Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye, 
Shouted, with fearful energy, 
" Back, ruffians, back ! nor dare to tread 
Too near the body of my dead ! 
Nor touch the living boy ; I stand 
Between him and your lawless band ! 
Take me, and bind these arms, these hands, 
With Russia's heaviest iron bands, 
And drag me to Siberia's wild, 
To perish, if 'twill save my child !" 

" Peace, woman, peace !" the leader cried, 
Tearing the pale boy from her side, 
And in his ruffian grasp he bore 
His victim to the temple door. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 391 

" One moment !" shrieked the mother, " one ! 

Will land or gold redeem my son ? 

Take heritage, take name, take all, 

But leave him free from Russian thrall ! 

Take these !" and her white arms and hands 

She stripped of rings and diamond bands, 

And tore from braids of long black hair 

The gems that gleamed like starlight there. 

Her cross of blazing rubies, last 

Down at the Russian's feet she cast. 

He stooped to seize the glittering store ; — 

Up springing from the marble floor 

The mother, with a cry of joy, 

Snatched to her leaping heart the boy ! 

But no ! the Russian's iron grasp 

Again undid the mother's clasp. 

Forward she fell with one long cry 

Of more than mortal agony. 

But the brave child is roused at length, 

And, breaking from the Russian's hold, 
He stands, a giant in the strength 

Of his young spirit fierce and bold ! 
Proudly he towers ; his flashing eye 

So blue, and yet so bright, 
Seems kindled from the eternal sky, 

So brilliant is its light. 
His curling lips and crimson cheeks 
Foretell the thought before he speaks 
With a full voice of proud command 
He turns upon the wondering band ; 
" Ye hold me not ! no, no, nor can ! 
This hour has made the boy a man. 
I knelt beside my slaughtered sire, 
Nor felt one throb of vengeful ire. 
I wept upon his marble brow, 
Yes, wept ! I was a child ; but now — 
My noble mother on her knee 
Has done the work of years for me !" 

He drew aside bis broidered vest 
And there, like slumbering serpents crest, 
The jeweled haft of poignard bright 
Glittered a moment on the sight. 

" Ha ! start ye back ? Fool ! coward ! knave ! 
Think ye my noble father's glaive 
Would drink the life-blood of a slave ? 



892 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

The pearls that on the handle flame 
Would blush to rubies in their shame, 
The blade would quiver in thy breast, 
Ashamed of such ignoble rest. 
No ! thus I rend the tyrant's chain, 
And fling him back a hoy's disdain /" 
• A moment, and the funeral light 
Flashed on the jewelled weapon bright; 
Another, and his young heart's blood 
Leaped to the floor, a crimson flood ! 
Quick to his mother's side he sprang, 
And on the air his clear voice rang : — 
" Up, mother, up ! I'm free ! I'm free ! 
The choice was death or slavery ! 
Up, mother, up ! Look on thy son ! 
His freedom is forever won ! 
And now he waits one holy kiss 
To bear his father home in bliss. 
One last embrace, one blessing — one ! 
To prov/e thou knowest, appro vest, thy son. 
What ! silent yet ? Canst thou not feel 
My warm blood o'er thy heart congeal ? 
Speak, mother, speak ! lift up thy head ? 
What ! silent still ? Then art thou dead ! 

Great God ! I thank thee ! Mother, I 

Rejoice with thee — and thus — to die !" 

One long, deep breath, and his pale head 
Lay on his mother's bosom, — dead ! 

Mrs. Ann S. Stephens^ abridged. 



DISSOLVE THE UNION. 

" Dissolve the Union !" Who would part 
The chain that binds us heart to heart ? 
Each link was forged by sainted sires, 
Amid the Revolution fires ; 
And cooled — oh ! where so rich a flood ? — 
In Warren's and in Sumter's blood. 

" Dissolve the Union !" Be like France, 
When Terror reared her bloody lance, 
And man became destruction's child, 
And woman, in her passions wild, 
Danced in the life-blood of her queen, 
Before the dreadful guillotine ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 393 

* 

" Dissolve the Union !" Roll away 
The spangled flag of glory's day ; 
Blot out the history of the brave, 
And desecrate each patriot's grave, 
And then, above the wreck of years, 
Quaff an eternity of tears ! 

" Dissolve the Union !" Can it be 
That they who speak such words are free ? 
Great God ! did any die to save 
Such sordid creatures from the grave, 
When, breast to breast and hand to hand, 
Our patriot fathers freed the land ? 

" Dissolve the Union !" Ho ! Forbear. 
The sword of Damocles is there ; 
Cut but a hair, and earth shall know 
A darker, deadlier tale of w T oe 
Than history's crimson tale has told, 
Since Nero's car in blood was rolled. 

" Dissolve the Union !" Speak, ye hills ! 
Ye everlasting mountains, cry ! 
Shriek out, ye streams and mingling rills ! 
And ocean, roar in agony ! 
Dead heroes, leap from glory's sod, 
And shield the manor of your blood ! 



FIEEMEN'S PEIZE ADDEESS. 

Our muse is summoned — what shall she rehearse,- 
A solemn strain, or mirth-inspiring verse ? 
She comes obedient to the Firemen's call, — 
List to her humble offering, Firemen all ! 

Our Pilgrim Fathers dared the stormy wave, 
In search of freedom, or a freeman's grave ! 
Planted their banner on the rocky shore, 
And blessed their God for all their perils o'er ; 
And then arose to Heaven the exulting cry, 
This be, oar home — The Home of Liberty ! 

The red man gazed, and saw around the land 
The obedient forest bow at their command ; 



394 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Beheld, where all was desolate and drear, 
Bright-eyed Content her cheerful roof nprear ; 
And marked hard-handed Labor in the field 
Force the reluctant earth her fruits to yield. 
Where blazed of old the Indian's council-fires, 
Religion lifted up her towering spires ; 
And in the dell where late the war-whoop rung, 
A new-born nation joyful paeans sung ! 

Years passed, — the " Pilgrim Spirit" still the guide 
Of sons who were those stern old fathers' pride ; 
And when Oppression raised his iron hand 
To crush the children of that chosen band, 
That spirit flew, like Heaven's avenging flame, 
Bared the keen blade, and to the rescue came. 
Her call each slumbering patriot awoke ; 
One glorious effort, — and their chains were broke ! 
Her trumpet-voice then rang from sea to sea, — 
Arise, Columbia ! be free ! be free ! 

Such, ye bold hearts, the men of soul and might, 
Whose high example is your beacon light. 

Hark ! that alarm-bell, 'mid the wintry storm ! 

Hear the loud shout ! the rattling engines swarm. 

Hear that distracted mother's cry to save 

Her darling infant from a threatened grave ! 

That babe who lies in sleep's light pinions bound, 

And dreams of heaven, while hell is raging round ! 

Forth springs the Fireman — stay! nor tempt thy fate 

He hears not — heeds not,— nay, it is too late ! 

See how the timbers crash beneath his feet! 

O, which way now is left for his retreat ? 

The roaring flames already bar his way, 

Like ravenous demons raging for their prey ! 

He laughs at danger, — pauses not for rest, 

Till the sweet charge is folded to his breast. 

ISTow, quick, brave youth, retrace thy path ; — but, lo ! 

A fiery gulf yawns fearfully below ! 

One desperate leap ! — lost ! lost ! — the flames arise, 

And paint their triumph on the o'erarching skies ! 

Not lost! again his tottering form appears! 

The applauding shouts' of rapturous friends he hears! 

The big drops from his manly forehead roll, 

And deep emotions thrill his generous soul. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 395 

I 

But struggling nature now reluctant yields ; 
Down drops the arm the infant's face that shields, 
To bear the precious burthen all too weak ; 
When, hark! — the mother's agonizing shriek ! 
Once more he's roused, — his eye no longer swims, 
And tenfold strength re-animates his limbs ; 
He nerves his faltering frame for one last bounol, — 
" Tour child !" he cries, and sinks upon the ground ! 

And his reward, you ask ; — reward he spurns ; 
For him the father's generous bosom burns, — 
For him on high the widow's prayer shall go, — 
For him the orphan's pearly tear-drop flow. 
His boon, — the richest e'er to mortals given,- — 
Approving conscience, and the smile of Heaven ! 

f. s. mu. 



THE FIREMAN, 



The city slumbers. O'er its mighty walls 
Night's dusky mantle, soft and silent, falls ; 
Sleep o'er the world slow waves its wand of lead 
And ready torpors wrap each sinking head. 
Stilled is the stir of labor and of life ; 
Hushed is the hum, and tranquillized the strife. 
Man is at rest, with all his hopes and fears ; 
The young forget their sports, the old their cares ; 
The grave are careless, those who joy or weep 
All rest contented on the arm of sleep. 

'Sweet is the pillowed rest of beauty now, 
And slumber smiles upon her tranquil brow ; 
Her bright dreams lead her to the moonlit tide, 
Her heart's own partner wandering by her side. 
'Tis summer's eve: the soft gales scarcely rouse 
The low-voiced ripple and the rustling boughs ; 
And, faint and far, some minstrel's melting tone 
Breathes to her heart a music like its own. 

When, hark ! O, horror ! what a crash is there ! 
What shriek is that which fills the midnight air? — 
'Tis fire ! 'tis fire ! She wakes to dream no more ! 
The hot blast rushes through the blazing door ! 



396 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

The dim smoke eddies round ; and, hark ! that cry ! 
" Help ! help ! Will no one aid ? I die— I die !" 
She seeks the casement : shuddering at its height, 
She turns again ; the fierce flames mock her flight ; 
Along the crackling stairs they fiercely play, 
And roar, exulting, as they seize their prey. 
" Help ! help! Will no one come ?" She can no more, 
But, pale and breathless, sinks upon the floor. 

Will no one save thee ? Yes, there yet is one 

Remains to save, when hope itself is gone ; 

When all have fled, when all but he would fly, 

The Fireman comes, to rescue or to die ! 

He mounts the stair — it wavers 'neath his tread ; 

He seeks the room — flames flashing round his head ; 

He bursts the door ;' he lifts her prostrate frame, 

And turns again to brave the raging flame. 

The fire-blast smites him with his stifling breath ; 

The falling timbers menace him with death ; 

The sinking floors his hurried step betray ; 

And ruin crashes round his desperate way. 

Hot smoke obscures — ten thousand cinders rise — 

Yet still he staggers forwards with his prize. 

He leaps from burning stair to stair. On ! on ! 

Courage ! One effort more, and all is won ! 

The stair is passed — the blazing hall is braved ! 

Still on! Yet on! Once more! Thank Heaven, she's saved/ 

The hardy seaman pants the storm to brave, 
For beck'ning Fortune woos him from the wave ; 
The soldier battles 'neath his smoky shroud, 
For Glory's bow is painted on the cloud ; 
The Fireman also dares each shape of death — 
But not for Fortune's gold nor Glory's wreath. 
No selfish throbs within their breasts are known ; 
No hope of praise or profit cheers them on. 
They ask no ;;ieed, no fame; and only seek 
To shield the suffering and protect the weak ! 
For this the howling midnight storm they woo; 
For this the raging flames rush fearless through ; 
Mount the frail rafter — thrid the smoky hall — 
Or toil, unshrinking, 'neath the tottering wall. 
Nobler than they who with fraternal blood 
Dye the dread field or tinge the shuddering flood — 
O'er their firm ranks no crimson banners wave ; 
They dare — they suffer — not to slay — but, save / 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 397 

At such a sight, Hope' smiles more heavenly bright ; 
Pale, pensive Pity trembles with delight ; 
And soft-eyed Mercy, stooping from above, 
Drops a bright tear — a tear of joy and love ! 

And should the Fireman, generous, true, and brave, 
Fall as he toils, the weak to shield and save, — 
Shall no kind friend, no min'st'ririg hand be found 
To pour the balm of comfort in his wound ? 
Or, should he perish, shall his orphans say, 
" He died for them — but what for us do they ?" 
Say, is it thus we should his toils requite ? 
Forbid it, Justice, Gratitude, and Right ; 
Forbid it, ye who dread what he endures ; 
Forbid it, ye whose slumbers he secures ; 
Forbid it, ye whose hoards he toils to save ; 
Forbid it, all, ye generous, just, and brave! 
And, above all, be you his friends, -ye fair ; 
For you were ever his especial care ; 
Give to his cause your smiles, your gentle aid — 
The Fireman's wounds are healed — the orphan's tears are 
stayed ! — JR. T. Conrad. 



WAR BETTER THAN FALSE PEACE. 

A cry is up in England, which doth ring 

The hollow world through, that for ends of trade 
And virtue, and God's better worshipping, 

We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace, 
And leave those rusty wars that eat the soul, — 

(Besides their clippings at our golden fleece.) 
I, too, have loved peace, and from bole to bole 

Of immemorial, undeciduous trees, 
Would write, as lovers use, upon a scroll 

The holy name of Peace, and set it high 
Where none should pluck it down. On trees, I say, — 

Not upon gibbets ! — With the greenery 
Of dewy branches and the flowery May, 

Sweet mediation 'twixt the earth and sky, 
Providing for the shepherd's holiday ! 

Not upon gibbets ! though the vulture leaves w 
Some quiet to the bones he first picked bare. 

Not upon dungeons ! though the wretch who grieves 
And groans within, stirs not the outer air 



398 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

As much as little field-mice stir the sheaves. 
Not upon chain-bolts! though the slave's despair 

Has dulled his helpless, miserable brain, 
And left him blank beneath the freeman's whip, 

To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain. 
Nor yet on starving homes ! where many a lip 

Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain! 
I love no peace which is not fellowship, 

And which includes not mercy. I would have 
Rather the raking of the guns across 

The world, and shrieks against Heaven's architrave. 
Rather the struggle in the slippery fosse, 

Of dying men and horses, and the wave 
Blood-bubbling. . . Enough said ! By Christ's own cross, 

And by the faint heart of my womanhood, 
Such things are better than a peace which sits 

Beside the hearth in self-commended mood, 
And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits 

Are howling out of doors against the good 
Of the poor w T anderer. What! your peace admits 

Of outside anguish while it sits at home ? 
I loathe to take its name upon my tongue — 

It is no peace. 'Tis treason, stiff with doom. — 
'Tis gagged despair, and inarticulate wrong, 

Annihilated Poland, stifled Rome, 
Dazed Naples, Hungary fainting 'neath the thong, 

And Austria wearing a smooth olive leaf 
On her brute forehead, while her hoofs outpress 
^ The life from these Italian souls in brief. 

O Lord of Peace ! who art Lord of Righteousness, 

Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief, 
Pierce them with conscience, purge them with redress, 

And give us peace which is no counterfeit ! 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



THE TASK OF THE CULPRIT PAY. 

"Wrapped in musing stands the sprite ; 
'Tis the middle wane of night ; 

His task is hard, his way is far, 
But he must do his errand right 

Ere dawning mounts her beamy car, 
And rolls her chariot wheels of light ; 
And vain are the spells of fairy land — 
He must work with a human hand. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 399 

He cast a saddened look around ; 

But he felt new joy in his bosom swell 
When, glittering on the shadowed ground, 

He saw a purple muscle shell; 
Thither he ran, and he bent him low, 
He heaved at the stern, and he heaved at the bow, 
And he pushed her over the yielding sand, 
Till he came to the verge of the haunted land. 

She was as lovely a pleasure boat 

As ever fairy had paddled in, 
For she glowed with purple paint without, 

And shone with silvery pearl within ; 
A sculler's notch in the stern he made, 
An oar he shaped of the bootle-blade ; 
Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap, 
And launched afar on the calm, blue deep. 

The imps of the river yell and rave ; 

They had no power above the wave; 

But they heaved the billow before the prow, 

And they dashed the surge against her side, 
And they struck her keel with jerk and blow, 

Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide. 
She whimpled about in the pale moonbeam, 
Like a feather afloat on a wind-tossed stream ; 
And momently athwart her track 
The quail upreared his island back, 
And the fluttering scallop behind would float, 
And patter the water about the boat ; 
But he bailed her out with his colen-bell, 

And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread, 
While on every side like lightning fell 

The heavy strokes of his bootle-blade. 

Onward still he held his way, 

Till he came where the column of moonshine lay, 

And saw beneath the surface dim 

The brown-backed sturgeon slowly swim ; 

Around him were the goblin -train — 

But he sculled with all his might and main, 

And followed wherever the sturgeon led, 

Till he saw him upward point his head ; 

Then he dropped his paddle-blade, 



400 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

And held his colen goblet up 

To catch the drop in its crimson cup. 

With sweeping tail and quivering fin, 

Through the wave the sturgeon flew, 
And, lil^e the heaven-shot javelin, 

He sprung above the waters blue. 
Instant as the star-fall light, 

He plunged him in the deep again, 
But left an arch of silver bright, 

The rainbow of the moony main. 
It was a strange and lovely sight 

To see the puny goblin there ; 
He seemed an angel form of light, 

With azure wing and sunny hair, 

Throned on a cloud of purple fair, 
Circled with blue and edged with white, 
And sitting at the fall of even 
Beneath the bow of summer heaven. 



A moment and its lustre fell ; 

But ere it met the billow blue, 
He caught within his crimson bell 

A droplet of its sparkling dew! — 
Joy to thee, fay ! thy task is done, 
Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won — 
Cheerly ply thy dripping oar, 
And haste away to the elfin shore. 

He turns, and, lo ! on either side 

The ripples on his path divide; 

And the track o'er which his boat must pass 

Is smooth as a sheet of polished glass. 

Around, their limbs the sea-nymphs lave, 

With snowy arms half swelling out, 
While on the glossed and gleamy wave 

Their sea-green ringlets loosely float; 
They swim around with smile and song ; 

They press the bark with pearly hand, 
And gentlyurge her course along, 

Toward the beach of speckled sand; 

And, as he lightly leaped to land, 
They bade adieu with nod and bow ; - i 

Then gayly kissed each little hand, 
And dropped in the crystal deep below. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 401 

A moment stayed the fairy there ; 

He kissed the beach and breathed a prayer; 

Then spread his wings of gilded blue, 

And on to the elfin court he flew ; 

As ever ye saw a bubble rise, 

And shine with a thousand changing dyes, 

Till, lessening far through ether driven, 

It mingles with the hues of heaven ; 

As, at the glimpse of morning pale, 

The lance-fly spreads his silken sail, 

And gleams with mendings soft and bright, 

Till lost in the shades of falling night; 

So rose from earth the lovely fay — 

So vanished, far in heaven away ! 

J. JR. Drake. 



THE WARDER'S REVENGE. 

The matins are said in Lochbuy's halls ; 

Maclean, the doughty chief, 
With haughty mien his henchman calls, 

And gives command in language brief. 

" Go, let the pibroch of the clan, 
The ' gathering' both loud and clear, 

Be sounded from the bartizan ; 
Maclean to-day will hunt the deer. 

" My child, Lochbuy's dear son and heir, 

My wife, the Lady Isabel, 
Will, with myself, be present there ; 

Hence ! quickly go — thy message tell." 

The henchman sped ; — the stag-hounds bay, 
The fiery steeds impatient rear ; 

The vassals, in their tartans gay, 
With gladsome faces soon appear. 

The chief, with bow and bugle-horn, 
Rides foremost with his island queen ; 

The nurse and child aloft are borne 
Within their wicker palanquin. 



402 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Each gorge and pass is fenced with care, 
And strictest vigilance enjoined, 

In order that the quarry there 
No outlet for escape might find. — 

The bugles sound ; the startled deer 
Fly fleetly as the viewless wind ; 

The shaggy hounds in full career 
Pursue, and leave the woods behind. 

But quicker still the red-deer fly, 

Bounding before the clamorous train ; 

While from the pass the warder's cry 
Rings w T ild to turn them ! — but in vain ! 

On, on they dash ! — the gorge they've won ! 
The hunting of the day is done. 

The baffled chief the warder eyed 
With savage wild ferocity ; — 

"Seize, bind the slave !" he madly cried, 
" A cur-dog's death his doom shall be. 

" But- no ! a refuge in the grave 

From sneering scorn all cowards find ; 

Then let him live his meed to brave ; 
But for the lash the craven bind !" 

With lips compressed, and dauntless breast 
Brave Callam-Dhu the whip-lash bore ; 

No change of countenance confessed 

The pain that thrilled through every pore, 

" Enough !" the chieftain cried aloud ; 

The galling cords were quick untied ; 
And slowly, followed by the crowd, 

Maclean to meet his lady hied. 

Like sunbeams, peering o'er the fells, 
Through murky clouds which sullen roll, 

She sweetly smiles, and soon dispels 
The moody umbrage of his soul. 

With kindly glow his bosom warms ; 

And stooping low upon the plain, 
He raised his infant in his arms, 

And kissed him o'er and o'er a^ain. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 403 

As if by force of magic's power, 

The clansmen, in their transports wild, 

Join in the greetings of the hour, 
And bless the lady and her child. 

And Callam-Dhu, with felon aim, 

His direful purpose to conceal, 
Shouts with the crowd in wild acclaim, 

As if disgrace he could not feel. 

But sudden as the lightning's flash, 

He from the nurse the child has torn, 
And up the cliff with frenzied dash, 
. The infant in his arms has borne. 



He never stopped, till clambering high, 
The fearful peak at last he gained ; 

And there he scowled, with glaring eye, 
On those who far below remained. 

The chief stood powerless and appalled ; 

The pale and frenzied Isabel 
Wild shrieked and for her infant called, 

As prostrate on the earth she fell. 

Infuriate, all the clansmen bound 
To scale the steep and narrow path, 

Which up the cliff so slippery wound, 
To swerve the least were instant death. 

" Move but a step," fierce Callam cried, 
" And on this dagger's hilt I swear, 

My blade that instant shall be dyed 

In this child's blood ! — take heed ! — beware !" 

The chieftain, with uplifted hands, 

Looks heavenward on the voiceless sky, 

And tremblingly imploring stands — 
Racked — torn with fiercest agony ! 

" One half my lands I'll freely give ! — 
All ! all !" he cried, in accents wild, 

" So that the innocent may live ! 

Oh ! save my wife, and spare my child !" 



404 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

" Maclean," he solemnly replied, 

" Gold never can indemnify 
For loss of honor, nor can hide 

The stains of open infamy. 

" Me wantonly you have disgraced, 
Ay, me ! — although full well you knew 

Your confidence was ne'er misplaced 
When given in trust to Callam Dhu. 

" Yet listen ! if you shall consent 

To bare your shoulders to the scourge, 

And suffer what I underwent, 

This, this, perhaps, the stains may purge." 

" Stripes, torture, death itself I dare," 
Maclean exclaimed, in frantic grief; 

Then turning, with his back laid bare — 

" Clansmen," he cried, " chastise your chief!" 

They murmured loudly, till with tears 
The chieftain prayed them to obey ; 

u Spare, spare my child ! assuage our fears ! 
In mercy strike ! — quick ! strike, I say !" 

'Tis over !— ISTow, with outstretched arms 
The desperate man holds out the child ; — 

What ! can he mean the babe to harm ? 
His looks are haggard, dark and wild ! 

A moment more — he shades the hair, 
The infant's placid brow to kiss : — 

See ! — horror ! — vaulting into air, 
Both sink into the black abyss. 

Ah ! who can paint the scene so dread— 
The anguish of the mingled yell ? 

Madness has fired the chieftain's head, 
Death seized the Lady Isabel. 

How vain, alas ! is human pride, 
And how impatient of control !— 
' It swells like ocean's raging tide, 
And saps the barriers of the soul. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 405 

At morn the sun on Lochbuy shone— 

Sire, husband, idol of his clan ; 
At eve he stands — his treasures gone — 

A lone and broken-hearted man. 

Thomas Nimmo. 



THE BISHOP AND THE EATS. 

The summer and autumn had been so wet, 
That in winter the corn was growing yet ; 
'Twas a piteous sight to see, all around, 
The grain lie rotting on the ground. 

Every day the starving poor 
Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door; 
For he had a plentiful last year's store, 
And all the neighborhood could tell, 
His granaries were furnished, well. 

At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day 

To quiet the poor without delay ; 

He bade them to his great barn repair, 

And they should have food for the winter there. 

Rejoiced such tidings good to hear, 
The poor folk flocked from far and near ; 
The great barn was full as it could hold 
Of women and children, and young and old. 

Then, when he saw it could hold no more, 
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door ; 
And, while for mercy on Christ they call, 
He set fire to the barn, and burnt them all. 

" F faith, 'tis an excellent bonfire !" quoth he ; 
" And the country is greatly obliged to me 
For ridding it, in these times forlorn, 
Of rats that only consume the corn." 

So then to his palace returned he, 

And he sat down to supper merrily, 

And he slept that night like an innocent man ; 

But Bishop Hatto never slept again. 



406 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

In the morning, as he entered the hall, 
Where his picture hung against the wall, 
A sweat like death all over him came, 
For the rats had eaten it out of the frame. 

As he looked, there came a man from his farm ; 
He had a countenance white with alarm : 
" My Lord, I opened your granaries this morn, 
And the rats had eaten all your corn. 

Another came running presently, 

And he was pale as pale could be ! 

" Fly, my Lord Bishop, fly !" quoth he, 

" Ten thousand rats are coming this way : 

The Lord forgive you for yesterday !" 

" I'll go to my tower on the Rhine," replied he ; 
" 'Tis the safest place in Germany ; 
The walls are high, and the shores are steep, 
And the stream is strong and the water deep." 

Bishop Hatto fearfully hastened away, 
And he crossed the Rhine without delay, 
And reached his tow T er, and barred with care 
All windows, doors, and loopholes there. 

He laid him down, and closed his eyes ; 

But soon a scream made him arise ; — 

He started, and saw two eyes of flame 

On his pillow, from whence the screaming cams. 

He listened and looked ; it was only the cat ; 
But the Bishop he grew more fearful for that ; 
For she sat screaming, mad with fear 
At the army of rats that were drawing near. 

For they have swum OA^er the river so deep, 
And they have climbed the shores so steep ; 
And up the tower their way is bent, 
To do the work for which they were sent. 

They are not to be told by the dozen or score ; 
By thousands they come, and by myriads and more; 
Such numbers had never been heard of before, 
Such a judgment had never been witnessed of yore. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 40 7 

Down on his knees the Bishop fell, 
And faster and faster his beads did tell, 
As, louder and louder drawing near, 
The gnawing of their teeth he could hear. 

And in at the windows, and in at the door, 
And through the walls, helter-skelter they pour, 
And down from the ceiling, and up from the floor, 
From the right and the left, from behind and before, 
From within and without, from above and below, 
And all at once to the Bishop they go ! 

They have whetted their teeth against the stones; 
And now they pick the Bishop's bones ; 
They gnawed the flesh from every limb ; 
For they were sent to do judgment on him ! 

Robert /Souther/, 



WAB. 

Spirit of Light and Life ! When battle rears 

Her fiery brow and her terrific spears ; 

When red-mouthed cannon to the clouds uproar, 

And grasping thousands make their bed in gore ; 

While, on the billowy bosom of the air, 

Roll the dread notes of anguish and despair ; 

Unseen, thou walk'st upon the smoking plain, 

And hear'st each groan that gurgles from the slain! 

List ! — war-peals thunder on the battle-field ; 

And many a hand grasps firm the glittering shield, 

As on, with helm and plume, the warriors come, 

And the glad hills repeat the stormy drum ! 

And now are seen the youthful and the gray, 

With bosoms firing to partake the fray ; 

The first, with hearts that consecrate the deed, 

All eager rush to vanquish or to bleed ; 

Like young waves racing in. the morning sun, 

That rear and leap with reckless fury on ! 

But mark yon war-worn man, who looks on high 
With thought and valor mirrored in his eye. 
Not all the gory revels of the day 
Can fright the visions of his home away ; 
The home of love and its associate smiles, 
His wife's endearments and his baby's wiles : — 



408 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Fights he less brave through recollected bliss, 
With step retreating, or with sword remiss ? 
Ah no ! remembered home'' 8 the warrior's charm, 
Speed to his sword, and vigor to his arm ; 
For this he supplicates the Power afar, 
Fronts the steeled foe, and mingles in the war ! 

The cannon's hushed ! — nor drums, nor clarion sound ; 
Helmet and hauberk gleam upon the ground ; 
Horseman and horse lie weltering in their gore ; 
Patriots are dead, and heroes dare no more ; 
While solemnly the moonlight shrouds the plain, 
And lights the lurid features of the slain ! 

And see ! on this rent mound, where daisies sprung, 
A battle-steed benea^i his rider flung : — 
Oh ! never more he'll rear with fierce delight, 
Roll his reel eye, and rally for the fight ! 
Pale on his bleeding breast the warrior lies, 
While, from his ruffled lids the whi te-s welled eyes 
Ghastly and grimly stare upon the skies ! 
i Afar, with bosom bared unto the breeze, 
White lips, and glaring eyes, and shivering knees, 
A widow o'er her martyred soldier moans, 
Loading the night- wind with delirious groans ; 
Her blue-eyed babe, unconscious orphan he, 
While sweetly prattling in his cherub glee, 
Leers on his lifeless sire with infant-wile, 
And plays and plucks him for a parent's smile. 

But who, upon the battle-wasted plain, 
Shall count the faint, the gasping, and the slain ? — 
Angel of Mercy ! ere the blood-fount chill, 
And the brave heart be spiritless and still, 
Amid the havoc, thou art hovering nigh 
To calm each groan, and close each dying eye, 
And waft the spirit to that halcyon shore, 
Where war's loud thunders lash the winds no more. 

Robert Montgomery. 



THE SOLDIEB'S FUNERAL. 

The muffled drum rolled on the air, 
Warriors with stately step were there ; 
On every arm was the black crape bound, 
Every carbine was turned to the ground : 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 409 

Solemn the sound of their measured tread, 
As silent and slow they followed the dead. 
The riderless horse was led in the rear, 
There were white plumes waving over the bier, 
Helmet and sword were laid on the pall, 
For it was a soldier's funeral. 

That soldier had stood on the battle-plain, 
Where every step was over the slain : 
But the brand and the ball had passed him by, 
And he came to his native land to die ! — 
'Twas hard to come to that native land, 
And not clasp one familiar hand ! 
'Twas hard to be numbered amid the dead, 
Or ere he could hear his welcome said ! 
But 'twas something to see its cliffs once more, 
And to lay his bones on his own loved shore ; 
To think that the friends of his youth might weep 
O'er the green grass turf of the soldier's sleep. 

The bugles ceased their wailing sound, 
As the coffin was lowered into the ground ; 
A volley was fired, a blessing said, 
One moment's pause — and they left the d,ead ! — 
I saw a poor and an aged man, 
His step was feeble, his lip was wan ; 
He knelt him down on the new-raised mound, 
His face was bowed on the cold, damp ground : 
He raised his head, his tears were done, — 
The Father had prayed o'er his only son. 



' MAEY, QTJEEN OP SOOTS. 

I looked far back into other years, and lo ! in bright array, 
I saw, as in a dream the forms of ages passed away. 

It was a stately convent, with its old and lofty walls, 
And gardens, with their broad green walks, where soft the 

footstep falls ; 
And o'er the antique dial-stones the creeping shadow passed, 
And all around the noon-day sun a drowsy radiance cast. 
No sound of busy life was heard, save, from the cloister dim, 
The tinkling of the silver bell, or the sisters' holy hymn. 
And there five noble maidens sat beneath the orchard trees, 
In that first budding spring of youth, when all its prospects 

please ; 



410 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

And little recked they, when they sang, or knelt at vesper 
prayers, 

That Scotland knew no prouder names — held none more dear 
than theirs — 

And little even the loveliest thought, before the holy shine, 

Of royal blood and high descent from the ancient Stuart line : 

Calmly her happy days flew on, uncounted in their flight, 

And, as they flew, they left behind a long continuing light. 
The scene was changed. It was the court, the gay court 
of Bourbon, 

And 'neath a thousand silver lamps a thousand courtiers 
throng ; 

And proudly kindles Henry's eye — well pleased, I ween, to 
see 

The land assemble all its wealth of grace and chivalry : — 

But fairer far than all the rest who bask on fortune's tide, 

Effulgent in the light of youth, is she, the new-made bride ! 

The homage of a thousand hearts — the fond, deep love of 
one — 

The hopes that dance around a life whose charms are but be- 
gun,— 

They lighten up her chestnut eye, they mantle o'er her cheek, 

They sparkle on her open brow, and high-souled joy bespeak : 

Ah ! who shall blame, if scarce that day, through all its bril- 
liant hours, 

She thought of that quiet convent's calm, its sunshine and its 
flowers ? 
The scene was changed. Beside the block a sullen heads- 
man flbod, 

And gleamed the broad-axe in his hand, that soon must drip 
with blood. 

With slow and steady step there came a lady through the 
hall, 

And breathless silence chained the lips, and touched the 
hearts of all. 

I knew that queenly form again, though blighted was its 
bloom, — 

I saw that grief had decked it out — an offering for the 
tomb! 

I knew the eye, though faint its light, that once so brightly 
shone ; 

I knew the voice, though feeble now, that thrilled with every 
tone ; 

I knew the ringlets, almost gray, once threads of living gold ; 

I knew that bounding grace of step — that symmetry of 
mould ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 41.3 

Even now I see her far away, in that calm convent aisle, \ 
I hear her chant her vesper-hymn — I mark her holy smile, — 
Even now I see her bursting forth, upon the bridal morn, 
A new star in the firmament, to light and glory born! 
Alas ! the change ! — she placed her foot upon a triple throne, 
And on the scaffold now she stands — beside the block — alone! 
The little dog that licks her hand — the last of all the crowd 
Who sunned themselves beneath her glance, and round her 

footsteps bowed ! 
— Her neck is bared — the blow is struck — the soul is passed 

away ! 
The bright — the beautiful is now a bleeding piece of clay ! 
The dog is moaning piteously ; and, as it gurgles o'er, 
Laps the warm blood that trickling runs unheeded to the 

floor ! 
The blood of beauty, wealth, and power — the heart-blood of 

a queen — 
The noblest of the Stuart race — the fairest earth has seen, — 
Lapped by a dog ! Go, think of it, in silence and alone ; 
Then weigh, against a grain of sand, the glories of a throne ! 

H. G. Bell, abridged. 



THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE, 
I. 



With storm-daring pinion, and sun-gazing eye 
The Gray Forest Eagle is king of the sky ! 
Oh ! little he loves the green valley of flowers, 
Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours, 
But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam 
Of the fierce, rocky torrent, he claims as his home ; 
There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood, 
And the many-voiced sounds of the blast-smitten wood. 

A fitful red glaring, a low, rumbling jar, 
Proclaim the storm-demon yet raging afar; 
The black cloud strides upward, the lightning more red, 
And the roll of the thunder, more deep and more dread: 
The Gray Forest, Eagle, where, where has he sped ? 
Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread ? 
Does the glare blind his eyes ? Has the terrible blast 
Qa-4he wing of the sky-king a fear-fetter cast ? 



41(12 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

A)), no ! the brave Eagle, he thinks not of fright; 

The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight ; 
TTo the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam, 

To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream, 
. And with front, like a warrior, that speeds to the fray, 

And a clapping of pinions, he's up and away ! 

Away, O away, soars the fearless and free ! 

What recks he the sky's strife ? — its monarch is he ! 

The lightning dark round him, — undaunted his sight ; 

The blast sweeps against him, — unwavering his flight; 

High upward, still upward he wheels, till his form 

Is lost in the dark scowling gloom of the storm. 

The tempests glides o'er with its terrible train, 
And the splendor of sunshine is glowing again ; 
And fall on the form of the tempest in flight, 
The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight ! 
The Gray Forest Eagle ! O, where is he now, 
While the sky wears the smile of its God on its brow ? 
There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath, 
With speed of the arrow 'tis shooting beneath ; 
Down, nearer and nearer, it draws to the gaze, — . 
Now over the rainbow,— now blent with its blaze; — 
J Tis the Eagle, — the Gray Forest Eagle ! — once more 
He sweeps to his eyrie, — his journey is o'er. 

II. 

Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away, 

But the Gray Forest Eagle minds little his sway ; 

The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom, 

Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb ; 

But the Eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbowed, 

Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud. 

An emblem of freedom, stern, haughty, and high, 
Is the Gray Forest Eagle, that king of the sky ! 
When his shadow steals black o'er the empires of kings, 
Deep terror, — deep, heart-shaking terror, — he brings ; 
Where wicked oppression is armed for the weak, 
There rustles his pinion, there echoes his shriek ; 
/His eye flames with vengeance, he sweeps on his way, 
And his talons are bathed in the blood of his prey. 

O, that Eagle of Freedom ! when cloud upon cloud 
Swathed the sky of my own native land with a shroud, 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. % 

When lightnings gleamed fiercely, and thunder-bolt rung, 
How proud to the tempest those pinions were flung ! 
Though the wild blast of battle rushed fierce through the air, 
With darkness and dread, still the Eagle was there ; 
Unquailing, still speeding, his swift flight was on, 
Till the rainbow of Peace crowned the victory won. 

O, that Eagle of Freedom ! age dims not his eye, 
He has seen earth's mortality spring, bloom, and die ! 
He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish, and fall, 
He mocks at Time's changes, he triumphs o'er all ; 
He has seen our own land with forests o'erspread, — 
He sees it with sunshine and joy on its head ; 
And his presence will bless this his own chosen clime, 
Till the Archangel's fiat is set upon Time.— .A B. /Street. 



THE MAIN-TRUCK, OR A LEAP FOR LIFE, 

Old Ironsides at anchor lay, 

In the harbor of Mahon ; 
A dead calm rested on the bay — 

The waves to sleep had gone ; 
When little Hal, the captain's son, 

A lad both brave and good, 
In sport, up shroud and rigging ran, 

An,d on the main-truck stood ! 

A shudder shot through every vein, 

All eyes were turned on high ! 
There stood the boy, with dizzy brain, 

Between the sea and sky ; 
"No hold had he above, below ; 

Alone he stood in air : 
To that far height none dared to go : 

No aid could reach him there. 

We gazed ; — but not a man could speak ! 

With horror all aghast, 
In groups, witih pallid brow and cheek, 

We watched the quivering mast. 
The atmosphere grew thick and hot, 

And of a liquid hue ; — 
As riveted unto the spot, 

Stood officers and crew. 



4*!4 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

■& The father came on deck : — he gasped, 

" Oh God ! thy will be done !" 
Then suddenly a rifle grasped, 

And aimed it at his son : 
" Jump, far out, boy, into the wave ! 

Jump, or I fire!" he said ; 
" That only chance your life can save! 

Jump, jump, boy !"— He obeyed. 

He sunk, — he rose, — he lived, — he moved, — 

And for the ship struck out ; 
On board, we hailed the lad beloved, 

With many a manly shout. 
His father drew, in silent joy, 

Those wet arms round his neck — 
Then folded to his heart his boy, 

And fainted on the deck. 

Morris. 



THE LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP. 

All is finished ! and at length 

Has come the bridal day 
Of beauty and of strength. 
To day the vessel shall be launched ! 
With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, 

And o'er the bay, 
Slowly, in all his splendor dight, 
The great sun rises to behold the sight. 

The ocean old, * 

Centuries old, 

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 

Paces restless to and fro, 
Up and down the sands of gold. 

His beating heart is not at rest ; 
And far and wide 
With ceaseless flow, 
His beard of snow 

Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 

He waits impatient for his bride. 

There she stands, 

With her foot upon tho sands, 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 415 

Decked with flags and streamers gay, 

In honor of her marriage day, 

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending, 

Round her like a vail descending, 

Ready to be 

The bride of the gray, old sea. 

Then the Master, 

With a gesture of command, 

Waved his hand ; 

And at the word, 

Loud and sudden there was heard, 

All around them and below, 

The sound of hammers, blow on blow, 

Knocking away the shores and spurs. 

And see ! she stirs ! 

She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel 

The thrill of life along her keel, 

And, spurning with her foot the ground, 

With one exulting, joyous bound, 

She leaps into the ocean's arms ! 

And lo ! from the assembled crowd 
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud, 
That to the ocean seemed to say, 
" Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray; 
Take her to thy protecting arms, 
With all her youth and all her charms." 

How beautiful she is ! how fair 
She lies within those arms, that press 
Her form with many a soft caress 

Of tenderness and watchful care ! 
Sail forth into the sea, O ship ! 

Through wind and wave, right onward steer ! 
The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 

Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 

Thou too, sail on, O ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity, with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 



416 THE PATKIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge, and what a heat, 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock ; 

'Tis of the wave, and not the rock ; 

'Tis but the napping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale. 

Spite of rock and tempest roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea : 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee — are all with thee. 

Longfellow* 



KINQ SOLOMON, 



King Solomon stood, in his crown of gold, 
Between the pillars, before the altar 

In the House of the Lord. And the king was old, 
And his strength began to falter, 

So that he leaned on his ebony staff, 

Sealed with the seal of the Pentegraph. 

All of the golden fretted work, 

Without and within so rich and rare, 

As high as the nest of the building stork, 
Those pillars of cedar were ; — 

Wrought up to the brazen chapiters 

Of the Sidonian artificers. 

And the king stood still as a carven king, 

The carven cedarn beams below, 
In his purple robe, with his signet ring, 

And his beard as white as snow, 
And his face to the Oracle, where the hymn 
Dies under the wing of the cherubim. 

By the soul of each slumbrous instrument 
Drawn soft through the musical misty air, 

The stream of the folk that came and went, 
For worship, and praise, and prayer, 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 41 7 

Flow'd to and fro, and up and down, 
And round the king in his golden crown. 

And it came to pass, as the king stood there, 

And look'd on the house he had built, with pride, 

That the hand of the Lord came unaware, 
And touched him ; so that he died, 

In his purple robe, with his signet ring, 

And the crown wherewith they had crowned him king. 

And the stream of the folk that came and went 
To worship the Lord with prayer and praise, 

Went softly ever, in wonderment, 
For the king stood there always ; 

And it was solemn and strange to behold 

That dead king crowned with a crown of gold. 

For he lean'd on his ebony staff upright ; 

And over his shoulders the purple robe ; 
And his hair and his beard were both snow-white ; 

And the fear of him filled the globe ; 
So that none dared touch him, though he was dead, 
He looked so royal about the head. 

And the moons were changed ; and the years rolled on ; 

And the new king reigned in the old king's stead ; 
And men were married and buried anon ; 

But the king stood, stark and dead ; 
Leaning upright on his ebony staff; 
Preserved by the sign of the Pentegraph. 

And the stream of life, as it went and came, 

Ever for worship and praise and prayer, 
Was awed by the face, and the fear, and the fame 

Of the dead king standing there ; 
For his hair was so white, and his eyes so cold, 
That they left him alone with his crown of golcL 

So King Solomon stood up, dead, in the House 
Of the Lord, held there by the Pentegraph, 

Until out from the pillar there ran a red mouse, 
And gnaw'd through his ebony staff; 

Then, flat on his face, the king fell down, 

And they picked from the dust a golden crown. 

Robert Bulwer Lytton. 



418 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



SAINT VALENTINE. 

Bishop Valentine sat in an oaken chair, 

Conning an ancient book ; 
His features they wore a thoughtful air, 
His feet they wore slippers, a velvet pair, 
And a velvet night-cap adorned his hair, 

And his cell was a snug little nook. 

The moon through the painted casement shone, 

And checkered the paven floor. 
Bishop Valentine sat by his lamp alone, 
As the length'ning shadows stole slowly on, 
Till at last the Abbey bell tolled — one ! 

When the bishop was heard to snore. 

ISTow Satan, who hated the Bishop right well, 
And had done him ill turns without number, 

At this instant, exactly, as it befel, 

In taking an airing, flew over his cell, 

So he carefully, muffled his tail round the bell, 
Lest its echoes should wake him from slumber. 

Then down, with a grace altogether his own,. 

To the cell of the Bishop he slips, 
Upsets a large bottle of eau-de-cologne, 
Lest the scent of the brimstone should make him known. 
And for fear of the light from his horns, draws on 

An extinguisher over the tips. 

He takes up the book that the monk had let fall, 

And smiles as he reads the name, 
As if he had dined upon wormwood and gall, 
Then flinging the volume against the wall, 
He stamps on the floor, and forth at his call, 

An enormous black cat there came. 

By the side of the Bishop he quietly sits, 

And places the cat in his arms. 
At once through the soul of the Bishop there flits 
A vision of beauty that crazes his wits, 
And far beyond all that the church permits, 

His episcopal spirit charms. 



Lucifer sits with a sly grimace, 
Watching the Bishop dream. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 419 

He clasps his arms in a close embrace, — 
When the cat starts suddeoly from her place, 
And fixes her talons in his face, 

And the Bishop awakes with a scream. 

Away through the roof flew the evil one, 

And away flew the cat through the floor. 
" Now still on this day," quoth the monk with a moan, 
" Shall men for my trials and sorrows atone, 
And be fooled by false dreams of fair maidens alone, 

Be it Valentine's day evermore !" 

A. B. Macdonough. 



THE FRENCHMAN AND THE PLEA POWDER* 

(original version.) 

A Frenchman once — so runs a certain ditty — 

Had crossed the Straits to famous London city, 

To get a living by the arts of France, 

And teach his neighbor, rough John Bull, to dance. 

But lacking pupils, vain was all his skill ; 

His fortunes sank from low to lower still, 

Until at last, pathetic to relate, 

Poor Monsieur landed at starvation's gate. 

Standing, one day, beside a cook-shop door, 

And gazing in, with aggravation sore, 

He mused within himself what he should do 

To fill his empty maw, and pocket too. 

By nature shrewd, he soon contrived a plan, 

And thus to execute it straight began : 

A piece of common brick he quickly found, 

And with a harder stone to powder ground, 

Then wrapped the dust in many a dainty piece 

Of paper, labelled " Poison for de Fleas," 

And sallied forth, his roguish trick to try, 

To show his treasures, and to see who'd buy. 

From street to street he cried, with lusty yell, 

" Here's grand and sovereign flea poudare to sell !" 

And fickle Fortune seemed to smile at last, 

For soon a woman hailed him as he passed, 

Struck a quick bargain with him for the lot, 

And made him five crowns richer on the spot. 

Our wight, encouraged by this ready sale, 

Went into business on a larger scale, 



420 - THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

And soon throughout all London scattered he 

The " only genuine poudare for de flea." 

Engaged, one morning, in his new vocation 

Of mingled boasting and dissimulation, 

He thought he heard himself in anger called ; 

And, sure enough, the self-same woman bawled, 

In not a very mild or tender mood, 

From the same window where before she stood. 

" Hey, there !" said she, " you Monsher Powder-man ! 

Escape my clutches now, sir, if you can ! 

I'll let you dirty thieving Frenchmen know, 

That decent people wont be cheated so. 

How dared you tell me that your worthless stuff 

Would make my bedsteads clean and clear enough 

Of bugs ? I've rubbed those bedsteads o'er and o'er, 

And now, the plagues are thicker than before!" 

Then spoke Monsieur, and heaved a saintly sigh 

With humble attitude, and tearful eye . 

" Ah, madame ! s'il vous plait, attendez-vous — 

I vill dis leetle ting explain to you. 

My poudare gran' ! magnifique ! why abuse him ? 

Aha ! I show you, Madame, how to use him. 

You must not spread him in large quantite 

Upon de bedstead — no ! dat's not de vay. 

First, you must wait until you catch de flea ; 

Den, tickle he on de petite rib, you see ; 

And when he laugh — aha ! he ope his troat ; 

Den poke de poudare down ! — Begar ! he choke ! ! 



DER ZHOE-MAKER'S POY. 

Der meat-chopper 'angs on der vite-vashed vail, 
For no gustomers gomed to der putcher's stall; 
And der sausage-machine vas no longer in blay, 
And der putcher-poys all had a holiday ; 
And der zhoemaker's poy gomed dere to shlide 
On der door of der zellar, but shtealed inside. 
Mit der choppin-mazhine he peginned to make vree, 
And he gried, "Dere is nobody lookin' at me!" 

Der day goed avay, and der night gomed on, 
And der zhoemaker vound dat his poy vos gone. 
He galled up his vrow, and der zearch pegan ; 
Dey looks for de poy — vind him if dey can. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 421 

Dey zeeks him and hunts him in every 'ouse, 

Der putcher's, der paker's, der shtation-'ouse ; 

And de answer dey getted vas M Nix-cum-eraus I" 



THE CONFESSION, 



There's somewhat on my breast, ladies, 
There's somewhat on my breast ! 

The livelong day I sigh, ladies, 
At night I cannot rest. 

I cannot take my rest, ladies, 

Though I would fain do so : 
A weary weight oppresseth me, 

The weary weight of woe ! 

'Tis not the lack of gold, ladies, 

The lack of worldly gear ; 
My lands are broad and fair to see, 

My friends are kind and dear ; 

My kin are leal and true, ladies, 
They mourn to see my grief — 

But oh ! 'tis not a kinsman's hand 
Can give my heart relief. 

'Tis not my love is false, ladies, 

'Tis not that she's unkind ; 
Though busy flatterers swarm around, 

I know her constant mind : — 

'Tis not her coldness, ladies, 

That pains my laboring breast ; — 

'Tis — that confounded cucumber 
I ate, and can't digest ! 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. 

Into the street the piper stepped, 
Smiling first a little smile, 

As if he knew what magic slept 
In his quiet pipe the while ; 

Then, like a musical adept, 



422 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, 
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, 
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled ; 
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 
You heard as if an army muttered ; 
And the muttering grew to a grumbling ; 
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling ; 
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, 
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, 
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Curling tails and pricking whiskers, 

Families by tens and dozens, 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — 
Followed the piper for their lives. 
From street to street he piped, advancing, 
And step for step they followed, dancing, 
Until they came to the River Weser, 

Wherein all plunged and perished 
Save one, who, stout as Julius CaBsar, 
Swam across, and lived to carry 

(As he, the manuscript he cherished) 
To Rat-land home his commentary, 
Which was, " At the first shrill notes of the pipe 
I heard a sound as of scraping pipe, 
And putting apples, wondrous ripe, 
Into a cider press's gripe ;. 
And a moving away of pickle-tub boards 
And a leaving ajar of conserve cup-boards, 
And a drawing the corks of train-oil flasks, 
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks ; 
And it seemed as if a voice 

(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery 
Is breathed) called out, ' O rats rejoice ! 

The world is grown to one vast dry-saltery ! 
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, 
Breakfast, dinner, supper, luncheon !' 
And just as a bulky sugar puncheon 
All ready staved, like a great sun shone, 
Glorious, scarce an inch before me, 
Just as methought it said, ' Come, bore me ;' — 
I found the Weser rolling o'er me." 

***** 

You should have heard the Hamelin people, 
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple ; 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 423 

" Go !" cried the mayor, " and get long poles ! 
Poke out the nests, and block up the holes ! 

Consult with carpenters and builders, 
And leave in town not even a trace 
Of the rats !" when suddenly up the face 
Of the piper perked in the market-place, 

With a " First, if you please, my thousand guilders." 

A thousand guilders ! The mayor looked blue ; 

So did the corporation too. 

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow 

With a gipsy coat of red and yellow ! 

" Besides," quoth the mayor, with a knowing wink, 

" Our business was done at the river's brink ; 

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, 

And what's dead can't come to life, I think ; 

So friend, we're not the folks to shrink 

From the duty of giving you something to drink, 

And a matter of money to put in your poke ; 

But as for the guilders, what we spoke 

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. 

Besides, our losses have made us thrifty ; 

A thousand guilders ! Come, take fifty !" 

The piper's face fell, and he cried 
" No trifling ! I can't wait, beside 
I've promised to visit by dinner-time 
Bagdat, and accept the prime 
Of the head-cook's pottage, all he's rich in, 
For having left in the Caliph's kitchen 
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor — 
With him I proved no bargain-driver ; 
With you don't think I'll bate a stiver ! 
And folks who put me in a passion, 
May find me pipe to another fashion." 

u How !" cried the mayor, " d'ye think I'll brook 

Being treated worse than a cook ? 

Insulted by a lazy ribald, 

With idle pipe and vesture piebald ? 1 

You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst ; 

Blow your pipe there, till you burst! " 

Once more he stepped into the street, 
. And to his lips again 

Laid his long pipe of smooth, straight cane ; 



424 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

And ere he blew three notes, (such sweet, 

Soft notes as yet musician's cunning 

Never gave the enraptured air,) 

There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling 

Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling; 

Small feet were pattering — wooden shoes clattering, 

Little hands clapping, — and little tongues clattering, 

And like fowls in a farm-yard, when barley is scattering, 

Out came the children running, 

All the little boys and girls, 

With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 

And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 

The wonderful music, with shouting and laughter. 

The mayor was dumb, and the council stood 

As if they were changed into blocks of wood, — 

Unable to move a step, or cry 

To the children merrily skipping by, — 

And could only follow with the eye 

That joyous crowd at the piper's back. 

But how the mayor was on the rack, 

And the wretched council's bosoms beat, 

As the piper turned from the High Street 

To where the Weser rolled its waters, 

Right in the way of their sons and daughters ! 

However, he turned from South to West, 

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 

And after him the children pressed ; 

Great was the joy in every breast. 

" He never can cross that mighty top ! 

He's forced to let the piping drop, 

And we shall see our children stop !" 

When, lo, as they reached the mountain's side, 

A wondrous portal opened wide, 

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed ; 

And the piper advanced and the children followed ; 

And when all were in to the very last, 

The door in the mountain side shut fast. 

Robert Browning^ abridged. 



POETICAL EXTEACTS. 425 



PUDDING AND MILK, 



Bless'd cow ! thy praise shall still my notes employ, 
Great source of health, the only source of joy ; 
Mother of Egypt's god — but sure, for me, 
Were I to leave my God, I'd worship thee. 
How oft thy teats these pious hands have press'd 
How oft thy bounties proved my only feast ! 
How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain I 
And roar'd, like thee, to find thy children slain ! 
Ye swains who know her various worth to prize, 
Ah ! house her well from winter's angry skies ! 
Potatoes, pumpkins should her sadness cheer, 
Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer ; 
When spring returns, she'll well acquit the loan, 
And nurse at once your infants and her own. 
Milk, then, with pudding, I would always choose ; 
To this in future I confine my muse, 
Till she in haste some further hints unfold, 
Well for the young, nor useless to the old. 
First in your bowl the milk abundant take, 
Then drop with care along the silver lake 
Your flakes of pudding ; these at first will hide 
Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide ; 
But when their growing mass no more can sink, 
When the soft island looms above the brink, 
Then check your hand ; you've got the portion due ; 
So taught our sires, and what they taught is true. 
There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear 
The nice distinction, yet to me 'tis clear, 
The deep-bowl'd Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop 
In ample draughts the thin diluted soup, 
Performs not well in those substantial things, 
Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings ; 
Where the strong labial muscles must embrace 
The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space. 
With ease to enter and discharge the freight, 
A bowl less concave, but still more dilate, 
Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size, 
A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes. 
Experienced feeders can alone impart 
A rule so much above the lore of art. 
These tuneful lips, that thousand spoons have tried, 
With just precision could the point decide, 



426 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Though not in song ; the muse but poorly shines 

In cones and cubes, and geometric lines ; 

Yet the true form, as near as she can tell, 

Is that small section of a goose-egg shell, 

Which in two equal portions shall divide 

The distance from the centre to the side. 

Fear not to slaver ; 'tis no deadly sin ; 

Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin 

Suspend your ready napkin ; or, like me, 

Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee ; 

Just in the zenith your wise head project ; 

Your full spoon rising in a line direct, 

Bold as a bucket, heed no drops that fall — 

The wide-mouthed bowl will surely catch them all ! 

Joel Barlow, 1793. 



THE NIGHT AFTEK CHEISTMAS. 

} Twas the night after Christmas — when, all through the 

house, 
Every soul was abed, and as still as a mouse ; 
Those stockings, so lately St. Nicholas' care, 
Were emptied of all that was eatable there. 
The darlings had duly been tucked in their beds, 
With very full stomachs, and pain in their heads ; 
I was dozing away in my new cotton cap, 
And Nancy was rather far gone in a nap, 
When out in the nurs'ry arose such a clatter, 
I sprang from my sleep, crying, " What is the matter ?" 
I rushed to each bed-side, still half in a doze, 
Tore open the curtains, and threw down the clothes, 
While the light of the taper served clearly to show 
The piteous plight of those objects below. 
For what to the fond father's eyes should appear, 
But the little pale face of each sick little dear. 
Each pet, having crammed itself full as a tick, 
I knew in a moment now felt like " Old Nick." 
Their pulses were rapid, their breathings the same, 
What their stomachs rejected I'll mention by name : 
Now turkey, now stuffing, plum pudding, of course, 
Now custards, now comfits, now cranberry-sauce : 
Before outraged nature each went to the wall. 
Aye ! lollypops, flapdoddle — great things and small, 



POETICAL EXTEACTS. 427 

As from throes epigastric, indigestibles fly, 
So figs, nuts and raisins, jam, jelly and pie : 
All the horrors of surfeit thus brought to my view, 
To the shame of mamma, and of Santa Claus too. 
I turned from the sight : to my bed-room stepped back, 
And brought out a vial marked "Pulv. Ipecac," 
When my Nancy exclaimed, (for their sufferings shocked her,) 
"Don't you think you had better, love, run for the doctor?" 
I ran — and was scarcely back under the roof, 
When I heard the sharp clatter of old Jalap's hoof; 
I might say, I had hardly had time to turn 'round, 
When the doctor came into the room with a bound. 
He was spattered with mud from his head to his boots, 
And the clothes he had on seemed the drollest of suits ; 
In his haste he'd put all quite awry on his back, 
And he looked like John Falstaff, half fuddled with sack. 
His eyes, how they twinkled ! Had the doctor got merry ? 
His cheeks looked like port, and his breath smelt of sherry ; 
He hadn't been shaved — so to baffle the breeze, 
The beard on his chin served as " cheveux defrise;" 
But inspecting their tongues in despite of their teeth, 
And drawing his watch from his waistcoat beneath, 
He felt of each pulse, saying, " Each little belly 
Must get rid of the rest of that pie-crust and jelly." 
I gazed on each chubby, plump, sick little elf, 
And groaned when he said it, in spite of myself: 
But a wink of his eye, as he physicked dear Fred, 
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread ; 
He didn't prescribe — but went straightway to work 
And dosed all the rest, — gave his trowsers a jerk, 
And adding directions, while blowing his nose, 
He buttoned his coat — from his chair he arose, 
Then jumped in his gig — gave old Jalap a whistle, 
And Jalap dashed off as if pricked by a thistle : 
But the doctor exclaimed, ere he drove out of sight, 
"More cases just like them! Good-night! Jones, good- 
night !" 



LET US ALONE, 



As vonce I valked by a dismal swamp, 
There sot an Old Cove in the dark and damp, 
And at everybody as passed that road 
A stick or a stone this Old Cove throwed; 



428 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKEB. 

And venever he flung his stick or his stone, 
He'd set up a song of " Let me alone." 

" Let me alone, for I loves to shy 

These bits of things at the passers-by ; 

Let me alone, for I've got your tin, 

And lots of other traps snugly in ; 

Let me alone — I am rigging a boat 

To grab votever you've got afloat ; 

In a veek or so I expects to come 

And turn you out of your'ouse and'ome ; 

I'm a quiet Old Cove," says he, with a groan ; 
" All I axes is, Let me alone." 

Just then came along, on the selfsame vay, 
Another Old Cove, and began for to say — 
" Let you alone ! That's comin' it strong ! 
You've ben let alone — a darned site too long ! 
Of all the sarce that ever I heerd ! 
Put down that stick ! (You may well look skeered.) 
Let go that stone ! If you once show fight, 
I'll knock you higher than any kite. 
You must have a lesson to stop your tricks, 
And cure you of shying them stones and sticks ; 
And I'll have my hardware back, and my cash. 
And knock your scow into tarnal smash; 
And if ever 1 catches you round my ranch, 
I'll string you up to the nearest branch. 
The best you can do is to go to bed, 
And keep a decent tongue in your head ; 
For I reckon, before you and I are done, 
You'll wish you had let honest folks alone." 

The Old Cove stopped, and t'other old Cove, 
He sot quite still in his cypress grove, 
And he looked at his stick, revolvin' slow, 
Vether 'twere safe to shy it, or no ; 
And he grumbled on, in an injured tone, 
" All that I axed vos, Let me cdone? 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 429 



SWELL'S SOLILOQUY. 

I don't appwove this hawid waw ; 

Those dweadfulbannahs hawt my eyes; 
And guns and dwums are such a baw, — 

Why don't the pawties compwamise ? 

Of cawce, the twoilet has its chawms ; 

But why must all the vulgah cwowd 
Pawsist in spawting unifawms, 

In cullahs so extwemely loud ? 

And then the ladies — pwecious deahs ! — 
I mawk the change on ev'wy bwow ; 

Bai Jove ! I weally have my feahs 
They wathah like the hawid waw ! 

To heah the chawming cweatures talk, 
Like patwons of the bloody wing, 

Of waw and all its dawty wawk, — 
It doesn't seem a pwappah thing ! 

I called at Mrs. Gweene's last night, 
To see her niece, Miss Mawy Hertz, 

And found her making — owushing sight !- 
The weddest kind of flannel shirts ! 

Of cawce, I wose and sought the daw, 
With fewy flashing from my eyes ! 

I can't appwove this hawid waw ; — 
Why don't the pawties compwamise ? 



DERMOT O'DOWD. 

When Dermot O'Dowd courted Molly M'Can, 

They were sweet as the honey and soft as the down, 
But when they were wed they began to find out 

That Dermot could storm and that Molly could frown ; 
They would neither give in — so the neighbors gave out — 

Both were hot, till a coldness came over the two, 
And Molly would flusther, and Dermot would blusther, 

Stamp holes in the flure, and cry out a wirrasthru ! 



4:30 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Oh murther ! I'm married, 

I wish I had tarried ; 
I'm sleepless and speechless — no word can I say. 

My bed is no use, 

I'll give back to the goose • 
The feathers I plucked on last Michaelmas day." 

" Ah !" says Molly, " you once used to call me a bird." 

" Faix, you're ready enough still to fly out," says he. 
" You said then my eyes were as bright as the skies, 

And my lips like the rose — now no longer like me." 
Says Dermot, " your eyes are as bright as the morn, 

But your brow is as black as a big thunder cloud, 
If your lip is a rose — sure your tongue is a thorn 

That strikes in the heart of poor Dermot O'Dowd." 

Says Molly, a you once said my voice was a thrush, 

But now it's a rusty ould hinge with a creak ;" 
Says Dermot, " you called me a duck when I coorted, 

But now I'm a goose every day in the week. 
But all husbands are geese, though our pride it may shock, 

From the first 'twas ordained so by Nature, I fear, 
Ould Adam himself was the first o' the flock, 

And Eve, with her apple-sauce, cooked him, my dear.'' 

Lover 



A RHYMED LESSON. 

From little matters let us pass to less, 

And lightly touch the mysteries of dress ; 

The outward forms the inner man reveal,— 

We guess the pulp before we cut the peel. 

I leave the broadcloth, — coats and all the rest, 

The dangerous waistcoat, called by cockneys " vest," 

The things named " pants" in certain documents, 

A word not made for gentlemen, but " gents ;" 

One single precept might the whole condense : 

Be sure your tailor is a man of sense ; 

But add a little care, a decent pride, 

And always err upon the sober side. 

Wear seemly gloves ; not black, nor yet too light, 

And least of all the pair that once was white ; 

Let the dead party where you told your loves 

Bury in peace its dead bouquets and gloves ; 



POETICAL EXTEACTS. 431 

Shave like the goat, if so your fancy bids, 
But be a parent, — don't neglect your kids. 
Have a good hat ; the secret of your looks 
Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks ; 
Virtue may flourish in an old cravat, 
But man and nature scorn the shocking hat. 
Does beauty slight you from her gay abodes ? 
Like bright Apollo, you must take to JRhoades 9 
Mount the new castor, — ice itself will melt ; 
Boots, gloves may fail ; the hat is always felt ! 

Our freeborn race, averse to every check, 
Has tossed the yoke of Europe from its neck y 
From the green prairie to the sea-girt town, 
The whole wide nation turns its collars down. 

The stately neck is manhood's manliest part ; 
It takes the life-blood freshest from the heart ; 
With short, curled ringlets close around it spread, 
How light and strong it lifts the Grecian head ! 
Thine, fair Erectheus of Minerva's wall ; 
Or thine, young athlete of the Louvre's hall, 
Smooth as the pillar, flashing in the sun 
That filled the arena where thy wreaths were won — 
Firm as the band that clasps the antlered spoil 
Strained in the winding anaconda's coil ! 

I spare the contrast ; it were only kind 
To be a little, nay, intensely blind ; 
Choose for yourself; I know it cuts your ear; 
I know the points will sometimes interfere ; 
I know that often, like the filial John, 
Whom sleep surprised with half his drapery on, 
You show your features to the astonished town 
With one side standing and the other down : — 
But, O my friend ! my favorite fellow-man ! 
If Nature made you on her modern plan, 
Sooner than wander with your windpipe bare, — 
The fruit of Eden ripening in the air, — 
With that lean head-stalk, that protruding chin, 
Wear standing collars, were they made of tin ! 
And have a neck-cloth, — by the throat of Jove ! 
Cut from the funnel of a rusty stove ! 

0. W.Holmes. 






432 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE FRENCHMAN AND THE PIGS. 

A Frenchman in a luckless hour, 

Sought shelter from a sudden shower, 

Beneath the gateway, where he viewed 

A sow, with all her motley brood 

Of little pigs. " Aha !» quoth he ; 

" A colloquer diversity ! 

Beaucoup I do admire dese little ting, 

Dey do de tought of eating bring. 

En verite, as I'm von sinner, 

'Twould make von most magnifique dinner ! 

But den, de English law so strick 

De people hang for such a trick ; 

And dough de hunger be bad ting, 

It's better dat, dan take von swing. 

But no one see, and if I 'scape 

And no fear come to my neck cape, 

dear, 'twould be von charmant treat, 
Like gourmand, roassy pig to eat." 

The point thus argued, one he seized 

And placed beneath his coat, well pleased. 

But piggy squeaked so long and loud, 

As soon alarmed a neighboring crowd. 

Swift off he ran, but closely followed 

The hustling mob, which loudly halloed. 

In vain, alas ! was all confession, 

The pig was found in his possession. 

Examined straight, and guilty found 

The culprit humbly bowed around 

And said, " Attendez-vous 

To vot I now parlez to you. 

Dis mamma pig, and children six, 

Me own did my attention fix, 

So to dis little pig I say, 

' Come live vid me von month, I pray,' 

Ven English me did tink he speak, 

For he cried out, " Aveek ! AveeJc!" 

4 O den,' say I, ' de time's but small — 

1 take you for a veek — dat's all.' " 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 433 

THE VULTURE. 
AFTER THE LATE EDGAR A. POE; 

The Vulture is the most cruel, deadly and voracious of birds of 
prey. He is remarkable for bis keen scent, and with the tenacity 
with which he invariably clings to the victim on whom he has fixed 
his gripe. He is not to be shaken off whilst the humblest pickings 
remain. He is usually to be found in an indifferent state of feather. — 
New Translation of Cuvier. 

Once upon a midnight chilling, as I held my feet unwilling 

O'er a tub of scalding water, at a heat of ninety-four ; 

Nervously a toe in dipping, dripping, slipping, then out-skip- 
ping, 

Suddenly there came a ripping, whipping at my chamber 
door — 

'Tis the second floor," I mutter'd, " flipping at my cham- 
ber door — 

. Want's a light — and nothing more !" 

Ah ! distinctly I remember, it was in the chill November, 
And each cuticle and member was with influenza sore ; 
Falt'ringly I stirr'd the gruel, steaming, creaming o'er the fuel, 
And anon removed the jewel that each frosted nostril bore, 
Wiped away the trembling jewel that each reddened nostril 
bore — 

Nameless here for evermore ! 

And I recollect a certain draught that fanned the window 

curtain 
Chilled me, filled me with a horror of two steps across the 

floor ; 
And, besides, I'd got my feet in, and a most refreshing heat in, 
To myself I sat repeating — " If I answer to the door — 
Rise to let the ruffian in who seems to want to burst the door, 
I'll be " and something more. 

Presently the row grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 
" Really, Mister Johnson, blow it ! — your forgiveness I im- 
plore, 
Such an observation letting slip, but when a man's just getting 
Into bed, you come upsetting nerves and posts of chamber 

door, 
Making such a row, forgetting" — spoke a voice behind the 
door ; 

" 'Tisn't Johnson" — nothing more ! 



434 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Open then was flung the portal, and in stepped a hated mortal, 
By the moderns call'd a Vulture, (known as sponge in days 

of yore.) 
Well I knew his reputation ! cause of all my agitation — 
Scarce a nod or salutation changed, he pounced upon the 

floor ; 
Coolly lifted up the oysters and some stout from off the floor, 
' Help'd himself, and took some more ! 

Then this hungry beast untiring fixed his gaze with fond 

admiring 
On a piece of cold boiled beef I meant to last a week or 

more, 
Quick he set to work devouring — plates, in quick succession, 

scouring — 
Stout with every mouthful showering — made me ask, to see 

it pour, 
If he quite enjoyed his supper, as I watched the liquid pour ; 
Said the Vulture, " Never more." 

Much disgusted at the spacious vacuum by this brute voracious 
Excavated in the beef — (he'd eaten quite enough for four) — 
Still, I felt relief surprising when at length I saw him rising, 
That he meant to go surmising, said I, glancing at the door — 
" Going ? well, I won't detain you — mind the stairs and shut 
the door" — 

— " Leave you, Tomkins ! — never more." 

Startled by an answer dropping hints that he intended stop- 
ping 
All his life — -I knew him equal to it if he liked, or more — 
Half in dismal earnest, half in joke, with an attempt at 

laughing, 
I remarked that he was chaffing, and demanded of the bore, 
Asked what this disgusting, nasty, greedy, vile, intrusive bore 
Meant in croaking " 1ST ever more." 

But the Vulture not replying, took my bunch of keys and 

trying 
Several, found at length the one to fit my private cupboard 

door ; 
Took the gin out, filled the kettle ; and, with a sang fr old 

to nettle 
Any saint, began to settle calmly down the grate before, 
Heally as he meant departing at the date I named before, 
Of never, never more ! 



POETICAL EXTKACTS. 435 

Suddenly the air was clouded, all the furniture enshrouded 
With the smoke of vile tobacco — this was worse than all be- 
fore ; 
" Smith !" I cried, (in not offensive tones, it might have been 

expensive, 
For he knew the art defensive, and could any rowdy floor ;) 
"Recollect it's after midnight, are you going? — mind the 
floor." 

Quoth the Vulture, " Never more." 

" Smith !" I cried, (the gin was going, down his throat in 

rivers flowing,) 
" If you want a bed, you know there's quite a nice hotel next 

door, 
Very cheap— I'm ill — and, joking set apart, your horrid 



Irritates my cough to choking. Having mentioned it before, 
Really, you should not compel me — Will you leave me— as 
before J" 

Quoth the Vulture, " Never more." 

"Smith!" I shriek'd — the accent humbler dropping, as 

another tumbler 
I beheld him mix, " be off! you drive me mad— it's striking 

four. 
Leave the house and something in it ; if you go on at the 

gin it 
Won't hold out another minute. Leave the house and shut 

the door — 
Take your beak from out my gin, and take your body through 

the door /" 

Quoth the Vulture, " Never more." 

And the Vulture never flitting — still is sitting, still is sitting, 
Gulping down my stout by gallons, and my oysters by the 

score ; 
And the beast, with no more breeding than a heathen savage 

feeding, 
The new carpet's tints unheeding, throws his shells upon the 

floor. 
And his smoke from out my curtains, and his stains from out 

my floor, 

Shall be sifted, never more ! 

Robert B, Brough. 



436 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS. 

The jackdaw sat on the cardinal's chair ! 

Bishop and abbot and friar were there ; 

Many a monk and many a friar, 

Many a knight and many a squire, 

With a great many more of lesser degree — 

In sooth, a goodly company ; 

And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee. 

Never, I ween, 

Was a prouder seen, 
Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams, 
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims ! 

In and out 

Through the motley rout 
That little jackdaw kept hopping about ; 

Here and there, 

Like a dog in a fair, 

Over comfits and cates, 

And dishes and plates, 
Cowl and cope and rochet and pall, 
Mitre and crosier ! he hopped upon all ! 

With a saucy air, 

He perched on the chair 
Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat, 
In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat ; 

And he peered in the face 

Of his lordship's grace, 
With a satisfied look, as if he would say : 
" We two are the greatest folks here to-day." 

And the priests with awe, 

As such freaks they saw, 
Said : " The deuce must be in that little jackdaw !" 

The feasting is over, nearly or quite, 
And a nice little boy all dressed in white 
Close by the great Lord Cardinal stands, 
With perfumed water to wash his hands. 
The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight 
Of that nice little boy all dressed in white ; 

From his finger he draws 

His costly turquoise, 
And, not thinking at all about little jackdaws, 

Deposits it straight 

By the side o* his plate ; — 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 437 

And, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing, 
That little jackdaw hops off with the ring ! 

There's a cry and a shout, 

And a terrible rout, 
And nobody seems to know what they're about ; 
But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out, 

*Fhe friars are kneeling, 

And hunting, and feeling 
The carpet, the floor and the walls, and the ceiling. 

The cardinal drew 

Off each plum-colored shoe, 
And left his red stockings exposed to the view : 

He peeps and he feels 

In the toes and the heels ; 
They turn up the dishes, — they turn up the plates, — 
They take up the poker and poke" out the grates, 

They turn up the rugs, 

They examine the mugs ; — 

But no ! no such thing ; — 

They can't find the Ring ! 

The Cardinal rose, with a dignified look, 

He called for his candle, his bell, and his book ! 

In holy anger and pious griefj 

He solemnly cursed that rascally thief! 

Never was heard such a terrible curse ! 

But what gave rise 

To no little surprise, 
Nobody seemed one penny the worse ! 

The day was gone, 

The night came on, 
The monks and the friars they searched till dawn ; 

When the sacristan saw, 

On crumpled claw, 
Come limping a poor little lame jackdaw ! 

No longer gay, 

As on yesterday, 
His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way; 
His pinions drooped — he could hardly stand — 
His head was as bald as the palm of your hand ; 

His eye so dim, 

So wasted each limb, 
That, regardless of grammar, they all cried: " That's him! 



438 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing ! 
That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's ring !" 

The poor little jackdaw, 

When the monks he saw, 
Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw, 
And turned his bald head as much as to say : 
" Pray be so good as to walk this way !" • 

Slower and slower 

He limped on before, 
Till they came to the back of the belfry door, 
Where the first thing they saw, 
'Midst the sticks and the straw, 
Was the Ring, in the nest of that little jackdaw. 

Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book, 
And off that terrible curse he took ; 

The mute expression 

Served in lieu of confession, 
And, 'being thus coupled with full restitution, 
The jackdaw got plenary absolution ! 

When those words were heard, 

The poor little bird 
Was so changed, in a moment, 'twas really absurd ; 

He grew sleek and fat ; 

In addition to that, 
A fresh crop of feathers grew thick as a mat ! 

His tail waggled more 

Even than before ; 
But no longer it wagged with an impudent air, 
Ko longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair. 

He hopped now about, 

With a gait devout ; 
At matins, at vespers, he never was out ; 
And if any one lied, or if any one swore — 

That good jackdaw 

Would give a great caw, 
As much as to say : " Don't do so any more !" 

Richard Harris Barharn, abridged. 









POETICAL EXTRACTS. 439 



BACHELOR'S HALL, 



Bachelor's Hall ! What a quare-lookin' place it is ! 

Save me from such all the days o' my life ! 
Sure, but I think what a burnin' disgrace it is, 

Niver at all to be gettin' a wife ! 

Pots, dishes, an' pans, an' such grasy commodities, 
Ashes and praty-skins, kiver the floor ; 

The cupboard's a storehouse of comical oddities — 
Things that had niver been neighbors before. 

Say the ould bachelor, gloomy an' sad enough, 

Placin' his tay-kettle over the fire ; 
Soon it tips over — Saint Patrick ! he's mad enough, 

If he were prisent, to fight with the Squire ! 

He looks for the platter ; — Grimalkin is scourin' it — 
Sure, at a baste like that, swearin's no sin ! 

His dish-cloth is missing; — the pigs are devourin' it — 
Tunder and turf! what a pickle he's in ! 

Late in the aiv'nin', he goes to bed shiverin' ; — 

Niver a bit is the bed made at all ; 
He crapes like a terrapin, under the kiverin' ; — 

Bad luck to the picture of Bachelor's Hall ! 

Anon. 



A TALE OF WOE, 



WHICH DESCRiBETH THE TJNHAPPINESS OF THOSE DEPRIVED OF THEIR 

SENSES. 

Two deacons old, some years ago, 
To meeting went, as I shall show ; 
The one purblind, the other deaf — 
Good Deacon Jones and Deacon Jeff. 

Now Jones the deaf had vainly tried 
Doctors and nostrums far and wide, 
And when all failed to make him hear, 
Lo ! a nice tin trumpet lent an ear. 

The church was dark, and as he sat 
On the front seat, beside his hat 



440 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

His trumpet lay, all shining bright, 
While the choir sang with all their might. 

Good Deacon Jeff was seated next, 
And much desired to find the text, 
When, groping round to seek his book, 
He on the trumpet cast a look. 

"Ah ! here's a lamp," thought he, "just right! 
I'll blow a coal, and have a light." 
Alas ! deaf mortals cannot know 
What ill betides them here below. 

Jeff hobbled to the stove in haste, 
In went the tongs, — no time to waste ; 
Each red hot coal in vain he blew, 
While mocking sparks around him flew. 

Of breath and patience quite bereft, 
Our Deacon soon the trumpet left ; 
It would not light, but full of heat, 
Again it stood upon the seat. 

Jeff sat him down, with*glowing cheek, 
The parson coughed, then rose to speak ; 
Good Jones looked round as if perplexed — 
Now was the time to hear the text. 

"Lift up thine ear!" — up flew the tin, 
When, lo ! in meeting what a din ! 
The people looked, in wild amaze, 
While Deacon Jones, with ear ablaze, 

Screamed and cried fire, and danced about, 
Not knowing what had caused the rout, 
Till Parson White, in sore dismay, 
Begged them to take the man away. 

Miss Dwight. 



THE FEATUKES, 



That mortals are made up of quarrelsome clay, 
My tale, I imagine, will prove as it goes ; 

For the features composing the visage, one day, 
Most cruelly fell to abusing the Nose. 



POETICAL EXTKACTS. 441 

First, the Lips took it up, and their reason was this : 
That the Nose was a bane both to beauty and love, 

And they never, moreover, in comfort could kiss, 
For that horrid protuberance jutting above ! 

Then Eyes, not behind in the matter to be, 

With a sparkle began, as I've oftentimes seen 'em, 
And vowed, it was perfectly shocking to see 

Such a lump of deformity sticking between 'em. 
The Cheeks, with a blush, said, " the frightfulest shade, 

By the Nose, o'er their bloom and their beauty was thrown ; w 
And Ears couldn't bear the loud trumpeting noise, 

Whenever that troublesome member was blown ! 

So 'twas moved, and agreed, without dallying more, 

To thrust the intruder, at once, from the face, 
But Nose, hearing this, most indignantly swore, 

" By the breath of his nostrils, he'd stick to his place !" 
Then, addressing the Eyes, he went learnedly through 

His defence, and inquired, " when their vigor was gone, 
Pray what would their worship for spectacles do., 

If the face had no Nose to hang spectacles on ?" 

" Mankind," he observed, " loved their scent, as their sight ; 

Or who'd care a farthing for myrtles and roses ? 
And the charge of the Lips was as frivolous quite ; 

For, if Lips fancied kissing, pray, why mightn't Noses ? 
As for Ears," — and, in speaking, Nose scornfully curled, — 

" Their murmurs were equally trifling and teasing, 
And not all the Ears, Eyes, or Lips in the world, 
Should keep him unblown, or prevent him from sneezing." 

" To the Cheeks," he continued, " he acted as screen, 

And guarded them oft from the wind and the weather ; 
And but that he stood, like a landmark, between, 

The face had been nothing but cheek altogether I" 
With eloquence thus he repelled their abuse, 

With logical clearness denning the case ; 
And from thence came the saying, so frequent in use, 

That an argument's plain " as the nose on your face !" 

New Monthly Magazine. 



442 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



PERILS OF THE PAVE, 



Jumping over gutters, 

Wading thro' the flood, 
Ploughing thro' the slush, 

Tumbling in the mud, 
Squatting in the puddles — 

Bless me ! this is nice, 
Slopping /through the water, 

Slipping on the ice. 

Men of every class, 

In such falling weather, 
Find it very easy, 

Tumbling down together. 
Pillars of the church, 

Servants of the devil, 
Here they very quiokly 

Find a common level. 

Very sharp young fellow 

Makes a perfect flat, 
Rusty, fusty bachelor 

Tumbles on his hat. 
Strictly temperate man, 

Who has ne'er been fuddled, 
Staggers here and falls, 

Dreadfully be-muddled. 

Corpulent old lady, 

Radiant with blushes, 
Ere she can cry " Ned," 

To the pavement rushes. 
Affluent old butcher 

With a solemn frown, 
Says " He's very sorry 

Beef is going down." 

Antiquated maiden, 

Easy to disturb, 
Violently seats her 

On the filthy curb , 
Witty man assisting, 

Says, " Trust you haven't hurt you; 
Judging from position, 

You must be gutta percha." 






POETICAL EXTRACTS. 443 

flj Policeman on corner, 

Holding up the wall, 
Suddenly in slipping 

Can't arrest his fall. 
Curious little boy, 

Walking with his par, 
Anxiously inquires 

" If that's a falling star ?" 

Yellow-kidded dandy, 

Dressed in height of fashion, 
Falls into a puddle, 

And then into a passion. 
Finding that he's going, 

In his wild alarm, 
Tries to break his tumble — 

Only breaks his arm. 

Here a robust, sober, 

Hearty-looking Quaker, 
Lays himself out flat, % 

Sans an undertaker. 
Then a jolly soul, 

Full of gin and porter, 
Quickly drops his rum, 

And takes to dirty water. 

Smiling little girls, 

Charming little trippers, 
Slip along the pave, 

As if they had on slippers ; 
Skipping over streams, 

No wider than their thumbs, 
Show their pretty teeth, 

And horrid ugly gums. 

Broken-winded horses, 

Pulling all they're able, 
Frequently get stalled, 

But seldom in the stable. 
Passengers in 'busses, 

Dreadfully aggravated, 
From their fellow creatures 

Are wholly isolated. 



444 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



Jumping over gutters, ^ 

Wading thro' the flood, 
Plowing thro' the slush, 

Tumbling in the mud, 
Squatting in the puddles — 

Bless me ! this is nice, 
Slopping thro' the water, 

Slipping on the ice. 

Phila. Evening Bulletin, 



THE NEW BALLAD OF LOED LOVELL. 

Lord Lovell he sat in St. Charles's Hotel, 

In St. Charles's Hotel sat he, 
As fine a case of a Southern swell, 

As ever you'd wish to see. 

Lord Lovell the town had vowed to defend, 
A-waving his sword on high, 
He swore that his last ounce of powder he'd spend, 
And in the last ditch he'd die. 

He swore by black and he swore by blue, 

He swore by the stars and bars, 
That never he'd fly from a Yankee crew 

While he was a son of Mars. 

He had fifty thousand gallant men, 

Fifty thousand men had he, 
Who had all sworn with him that they'd never surren- 

Der to any tarnation Yankee. 

He had forts that no Yankee alive could take, 

He had iron-clad boats a score, 
And batteries all around the lake, 

And along the river shore. 

Sir Farragut came with a mighty fleet, 

With a mighty fleet came he, 
And Lord Lovell instanter began to retreat 

Before the first boat he could see. 



POETICAL EXTEACTS. 445 

His fifty thousand galliant men 

Dwindled down to thousand six ; 
They heard a distant cannon and then 

Commenced a-cutting their sticks. 

" Oh tarry, Lord Lovell !" Sir Farragut cried, 

" Oh tarry, Lord Lovell !" said he ; 
" I rather think not," Lord Lovell replied, 

" For I'm in a great hurry." 

" I like the drinks at St. Charles's Hotel, 

But I never could bear strong Porter, 
Especially when it's served on the shell, 

Or mixed in an iron mortar." 

" I reckon you're right," Sir Farragut said, 

" I reckon you're right," said he, 
" For if my Porter should fly to your head, 

A terrible smash there'd be." 

Oh ! a wonder it was to see tiiem run, 

A wonderful thing to see, 
And the Yankees sailed up without shooting a guh 

And captured their great citie. 

Lord Lovell kept running all day and night, 

Lord Lovell a-running kept he, 
For he swore he couldn't abide the sight 

Of the gun of a live Yankee. 

When Lord Lovell's life was brought to a close 

By a sharp-shooting Yankee gunner, 
From his head there sprouted a red red rose, 

From his foot — a Scarlet Runner. 

Phila. Evening Bulletin. 



THE LURID LEPER 



In that spasmodic region, where mankind 
Are deeply synchronous and vaguely blind, 
Where elemental anodynes prevail, 
And Stygian carboys ventilate the sail ; 
Where man is analyzed, and nature's voice, 
Bids esoteric fallacies rejoice ; — 



446 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

In that far-distant soporific land, 

There dwelt an adipose erotic band, 

Whose crimson viaducts, and bland petards ; 

Whose synalephas and whose colic guards — 

Whose imbecilities, whose chevaliers, 

Annulled and scarified the many years. 

At length a leper, of laconic form, 

Appeared sophisticated on a storm ; 

His eye mellifluous, his nose malign, 

His lurid color vilified the Rhine ; 

While in his air a sudorific sneer 

Of calligraphic anguish did appear. 

On either side of his savanna ran 

A tall, narcotic, convalescent man ; 

While all around a cloud of granite spread, 

White as a coal, and as a lily red. 

From this a salamander floated in, 

And stood where once a terebinth had been ; 

Paused for a moment, shook his amber mane, 

And rushed upon the leper ; but in vain 

Were all his efforts to propel the pang, — 

His bones were crumbled 'neath that murderer's fang. 

He shrieked, he sympathized, he vainly tried 

To draw an inference, with ghostly pride ; 

And thus, without a groan, the lurid leper died. 

Above his grave a ghastly catacomb 

Rises, like Chimborazo over Rome ; 

Thither the pilgrim in his fell canoe 

Eludes the gnomon and the wild halloo ; 

And while he verifies his deep career 

In which a -panoply of lights appear, 

Pursuer, — Pygmalion in his lambent cars 

Dissects the universe, dethrones the stars, 

Assails the Carmine, then ascends the Alps, 

And builds a wigwam of a thousand scalps. 

More of thy history I may not tell, 

But bid the lurid leper, now farewell. — Anonymous, 



SHAMUS O'BRIEN, THE BOLD BOY OF GLINGALL, 

Just afther the war, in the w year '98, 
As soon as the boys were all scattered and bate, 
'Twas the custom, whenever a pisant was got, 
To hang him by thrial — barrin' sich as was shot. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 447 

There was trial by jury goin' on by daylight, 
And the martial-law hanging the lavins by night. 
It's them was hard times for an honest gossoon ; 
If he missed in the judges — he'd meet a dragoon ; 
An' whether the sodgers or judges gev sentence, 
The diyil a much time they allowed for repentance. 
An' it's many's the fine boy was then on his keepin' 
Wid small share iv restin', or atin' or sleepin', 
An' because they loved Erin, an' scorned to sell it, 
A prey for the bloodhound, a mark for the bullet — 
Unsheltered by night, and unrested by day, 
With the heath for their barrack, revenge for their pay ; 
An' the bravest an' hardiest boy iv them all 
Was Shamus O'Brien, from the town iv Glingall. 
% * % * * * 

The mornin' was bright, an' the mists rose on high, 

An' the lark whistled merrily in the clear sky ; 

But why are the men standin' idle so late ? 

An' why do the crowds gather fast in the street ? 

What' come they to talk of? What come they to see? 

An' why does the long rope hang from the cross-tree? 

O, Shamus O'Brien ! pray fervent and fast, 

May the saints take your soul, for this day is your last ; 

Pray fast and pray sthrong, for the moment is nigh, 

When, sthrong, proud, an' great as you are, you must die. 

An' fasther and fasther the crowd gathered there, 

Boys, horses and gingerbread, just like a fair; 

An' whiskey was sellin, an' cussamuck too, 

An' ould men and young women enjoying the view. 

An' ould Tim Mulvany, he med the remark, 

There wasn't sich a sight since the time of ISToah's ark ; 

An' be gorry, 'twas thrue for him, for divil sich a scruge, 

Sich divarshin and crowds, was known since the deluge. 

For thousands were gathered there, if there was one, 

Waitin' till sich time as the hangin' id come on. 

At last they threw open the big prison-gate, 

An' out came the sheriffs and sodgers in state, 

An' a cart in the middle, an' Shamus was in it, 

Not paler, but prouder than ever, that minute. 

An' as soon as the people saw Shamus O'Brien, 

Wid prayin' and blessin', and all the girls cryin', 

A wild wailin' sound kem on by degrees, 

Like the sound of the lonesome wind bio win' through trees. 

On, on to the gallows the sheriffs are gone, 

An' the carts an' the sodgers go steadily on ; 



448 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

An' at every side swellin' around of the cart, 

A wild, sorrowful sound, that id open your heart. 

"Now under the gallows the cart takes its stand, 

An' the hangman gets up with the rope in his hand J 

An' the priest havin' blest him, goes down on the ground, 

An' Shamus O'Brien throws one last look round. 

Then the hangman dhrew near, an' the people grew still, 

Young faces turned sickly, and warm hearts turn chill ; 

An' the rope bein' ready, his neck was made bare, 

For the gripe iv the life-strangling cord to prepare ; 

An' the good priest has left him, havin' said his last prayer. 

But the good priest done more, for his hands he unbound, 

And with one daring spring Jim has leaped on the ground ; 

Bang ! bang ! goes the carbines, and clash goes the sabres ; 

He's not down ! he's alive still ! now stand to him, neighbors ! 

Through the smoke and the horses he's into the crowd, — 

By the heavens, he's free ! — than thunder more loud, 

By one shout from the people the heavens were shaken — 

One shout that the dead of the world might awaken. 

The sodgers ran this way, the sheriffs ran that, 

An' Father Malone lost his new Sunday hat ;' 

To-night he'll be sleepin' in Aherloe Glin, 

An' the divil's in the dice if you catch him ag'in. 

Your swords they may glitter, your carbines go bang, 

But if you want hangin', it's yourself you must hang. 

He has mounted his horse, and soon he will be 
In America, darlint, the land of the free. 

Samuel Lover. 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 
I. 

Never go to France 
Unless you know the lingo, 
If you do, like me, 
You will repent, by jingo. 
Staring like a fool 
And silent as a mummy 
There I stood alone, 
A nation with a dummy. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 449 



II. 



Chaises stand for chairs, 
They christen letters Billies, 
JThey call their mothers mares, 
And all their daughters fillies ; 
Strange it was to hear, 
I'll tell you what's a good 'un, 
They call their leather queer, 
And half their shoes are wooden. 

III. 

Signs I had to make, 
For every little notion ; 
Limbs all going, like 
A telegraph in motion. 
For wine I reeled about, 
To show my meaning fully, 
And made a pair of horns 
To ask for " beef and bully." 

IV. 

Moo ! I cried for milk ; 

I got the sweet things snugger, 

When I kissed Jeannette, 

'Twas understood for sugar. 

If I wanted bread, 

My jaws I set agoing, 

And asked for new laid eggs 

By clapping hands, and crowing. 

V. 

If I wished a ride, 
I'll tell you how I got it ; 
On my stick astride, 
I made believe to trot it. 
Then their cash was strange ; 
It bored me every minute, 
Here's a hog to change — 
How many sows are in it. 



450 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



VI. 



Never go to France 
Unless you know the lingo , 
If you do, like me, 
You will repent, by jingo. 

Thomas Hood. 



THE INDIAN CHIEFTAIN. 

'Twas late in the autumn of '53 

That, making some business-like excuse, 
I left New York, which is home to me, 

And went on the cars to Syracuse. 

Born and cradled in Maiden Lane, 

I went to school in Battery Row, 
Till when, my daily bread to obtain, 

They made me clerk to Muggins & Co. 

But I belonged to a genteel set 

Of clerks with souls above their sphere, 
Who night after night together met, 

To feast on intellectual cheer. 

We talked of Irving and Bryant and Spratt — 

Of Willis, and how much they pay him per page — 

Of Sontag and Julien and Art, and all that — 
And — what d'ye call it ? — the Voice of the Age ! 

We wrote little pieces on purling brooks 

And meadow and zephyr and sea and sky, — 

Things of which we have seen good descriptions in books, 
And the last, between houses some sixty feet high ! 

Somehow in this way my soul got tired ; 

I wanted to see, and hear, and know 
The glorious things that our hearts inspired — 

The things that sparkled in poetry so ! 

And I had heard of the dark-browed braves 

Of the famous Onondaga race, 
Who once paddled the birch o'er Mohawk's waves, 

Or swept his shores in war and the chase. 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. / 451 

I'd see that warrior stern and fleet ! 

Aye, bowed though he be with oppression's abuse : — 
I'd grasp his hand ! — so in Chambers Street 

I took my passage for Syracuse. 

Arrived at last, I gazed upon 

The smoke-dried wigwam of the tribe :— 
" The depot, sir," suggested one, — 

I smiled to scorn the idle jibe. 

Then to the baggage-man I cried, . . 

" Oh ! point me an Indian chieftain out ! 
Rudely he grinned as he replied, 

" You'll see 'em loafin' all about ! 

"Wounded I turn — when lo ! e'en now 

Before me stands the sight I crave ! 
I knew him by his swarthy brow ; 

It is an Onondaga brave ! 

I know him by his falcon eye, 

His raven tress and mien of pride; — 
Those dingy draperies, as they fly, 

Tell that a great soul throbs inside ! 

!N"o eagle-feathered crown he wears, 

Capping in pride his kingly brow ; 
But his crownless hat in grief declares, 

" I am an unthroned monarch now !" 

" O noble son of a royal line," 

I exclaim as I gaze into his face, 
" How shall I knit my soul to thine ; 

How right the wrongs of thine injured race ? 

" What shall I do for thee, glorious one ! 

To soothe thy sorrows my soul aspires. 
Speak ! and say how the Saxon's son 

May atone for the wrongs of his ruthless sires !" 

He speaks, he speaks ! — that noble chief! 

From his marble lips deep accents come ; 
And I catch the sound of his mighty grief: — 

" Pie? gV me tree cent for grit some rum!" 



IV. 

DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



BKUTUS. 

Adapted from the Tragedy of that name by John Howard Payne. 

Characters :— Brutus, Valerius, Lucretius, Collatinus, Citizens. 

Scene. — A street in Home. 
Miter Valerius and Lucretius, e. 

Val. "Words are too feeble to express the horror 
With which my soul revolts against this Tarquin. 
By poison he obtained his brother's wife, 
Then, by a baser murder, grasped the crown ! 
These eyes beheld that ancient monarch, thrown 
Down from the senate-house — his feeble limbs 
Bruised by the pavement — his time-honored locks, — 
Which from the very robber would have gained 
Respect and veneration — bathed in blood ! 
With difficulty raised, and tottering homeward, 
The murderers followed — struck him — and he died ! 

Luc. Inexpiable crime ! - 

Val. High in her regal chariot, Tullia came — 
The corpse lay in the street. The charioteer 
Turned back the reins in horror. " On, slave, on! 
Shall dead men stop my passage to a throne ?" 
Exclaimed the parricide. The gore was dashed 
From the hot wheels up to her diadem ! 

Luc. And Heaven's avenging lightnings were withheld. 
Here rules this Tullia, while the king, her husband, 
Wastes our best blood, in giddy, guilty war ! 
Spirit of Marcus Junius! — Would the gods 
Deign to diffuse thy daring through the land, 
Rome from her trance with giant spirit would start, 
Dash off her fetters, and amaze the world ! 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 458 

Val. Junius, didst say ? Oh ! tyranny long since 
Had sunk — chained — buried in its native hell — 
But Tarquin, trembling at his virtues, murdered 
Him and his elder son. The younger, Lucius, 
Then on his travels, 'scaped the tyrant's sword, 
But lost his reason at their fearful fall. 

Enter Bedttjs, e. 

Luc. Ay, the same Lucius, who now dwells with Tarquin, 
The jest, the fool, the laughing-stock o' th' court, 
Whom the young princes always carry with 'em 
To be the butt of their unfeeling mirth. 

Vol. Hold ! I hear steps. Great things may yet be done, 
If we are men, and faithful to our country. \JEheuyi% l. 

Brutus. {Alone.'] 'Tis not these things that ruffle me, the 
gibes 
And scornful mockeries of ill-governed youth — 
Or flouts of dastard sycophants and jesters — 
Reptiles, who lay their bellies on the dust 
Before the frown of majesty ! — All this 
I but expect, nor grudge to bear ; the face 
I carry, courts it ! Son of Marcus Junius ! 
When will the tedious gods permit thy soul 
To walk abroad in her own majesty, 
And throw this vizor of thy madness from thee, 
To avenge my father's and my brother's murder ? 
(And sweet, I must confess, would be the draught !) 
Had this been all, a thousand opportunities 
I've had to strike the blow — and my own life 
I had not valued as a rush. — But still — 
There's something nobler to be done ! — My soul, 
Enjoy the strong conception ! Oh ! 'tis glorious 
To free a groaning country — 
To see Revenge 

Spring like a lion from the den, and tear 
These hunters of mankind ! Grant but the time, 
Grant but the moment, gods ! If I am wanting, 
May I drag out this idiot-feigned life 
To late old age, and may posterity 
Ne'er hear of Junius but as Tarquin's fool! 
Ha ! yonder goes Valerius ! — I will test him ! 
Valerius, — ho ! 

Val. Who calls me? 

Bru. Brutus. 

Val. Go, get thee to bed ! [ Valerius is departing, 

Bru. Valerius ! 



454 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Val. Peace, 
Thou foolish thing ! Why dost thou call so loud ? 

Bru. Because I will be heard. The time may come 
When thou mayst want a fool. 

Val. Pr'ythee, begone ! 
I have no time to hear thy prattle now. 

Bru. By Hercules, but you must hear. [Seizing his arm, 

Val. You'll anger me. 

Bru. Waste not your noble anger on a fool — 
'Twere a brave passion in a better cause. 

Val. Thy folly's cause enough. 

Bru. Rail not at folly — 
There's but one wise, 
And him the gods have killed. 

Val. Killed ? Whom ? 

Bru. Behold! 
Where in the storm last night the forked flash 
Struck down the statue of Tarquinius 
And shattered it in pieces ! Dost thou see ! 
Oh, sight of pity! — Majesty in ruins ! 
Down on your knees — down to your kingly idol I 

Val. Let slaves and sycophants do that : not I. 

Bru. Wilt thou not ku eel? 

Val. Begone ; 
Valerius kneels not to the living Tarquin. 

Bru. Indeed ! — Belike you wish him laid as low ? 

Val. What if I do ? 

Bru. Jove tells thee what to do — ' 
Strike ! — Oh ! the difference 'twixt Jove's wrath and thine ! 
He, at the crowned tyrant aims his shaft : 
Thou, mighty man, would'st frown a fool to silence. 
And spurn poor Brutus from thee. 

Val. What is this ? 
Let me look nearer at thee. Is thy mind, 
That long-lost jewel, found ? — and Lucius Junius, 
Dear to my heart, restored ? Or art thou Brutus, 
The scoff and jest of Rome, and this a fit 
Of intermittent reason ? 

Bru. I am Brutus ! 
Folly, be thou my goddess ! I am Brutus, 
If thou wilt use me so ! — If not, farewell. 
Why dost thou pause ? Look on me ! I have limbs, 
Parts and proportions, shoulders strong to bear, 
And hands not slow to strike ! What more than Brutus 
Could Lucius Junius do ? 

Val. A cause like ours 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 455 

Asks both the strength of Brutus, and the wisdom 
Of Lucius Junius. 

Collatinus enters wildly ^ a bloody dagger in his hand, 
followed by Yalerius and Lucretius, e. 

My wife ! my wife ! dear, dear, wronged, murdered wife ! ' 

O friends, Lucretia's dead ! I plucked this steel 

From my Lucretia's heart ! This is her blood ! 

Outraged by Tarquin, with her own fair hand, 

She forced her pure soul from its prison-house. 

Howl, howl, ye men of Rome ! Look ! there she lies, 

That was your wonder ! 

Ye mighty gods, where are your thunders now ? 

Ye men and warriors, have you human hearts ? 

Yet who shall dare to mourn her loss like me ? 

Enter Brutus, l. 

Bru. I dare, — and so dare every honest Roman. 

Jjiic. Whence comes this mad intrusion ? Hence, begone ! 

Bru. The noble spirit fled ! How died Lucretia ? 

Col. By her own hand she died ! 

Bru. Heroic matron ! 
Now, now the hour is come ! By this one blow 
Her name's immortal, and her country's saved ! [ Crosses, c. 
Hail ! dawn of glory ! [Snatching the dagger^ Hail, thou 

sacred weapon ! 
Yirtue's deliverer, hail ! 

Hear, Romans, hear ! did not the Sibyl tell you, 
A fool should set Rome free ? I am that fool : 
Brutus bids Rome be free ! [ Crosses, l. 

Vol. What can this mean ? 

Bru. It means that Lucius Junius has thrown off 
The mask of madness, and his soul rides forth 
On the destroying whirlwind, to avenge 
The wrongs of that bright excellence and Rome I 

Luc. Can this be Lucius Junius ? 
Vol. JIa ! The voice 
Of inspiration speaks ! 

Col. Oh, glorious Brutus, 
Let me in tears adore the bounteous gods 
Who have restored thee to redress my woes ; 
And, in my woes, my country ! 

Bru. No more of this. 
Stand not in wonder. Every instant now 
Is precious to your cause. Rise ! Snatch your arms ! 

[Kneels. 



456 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Hear me, great Jove ! and thou, paternal Mars, 

And spotless Vesta ! To the death, I swear 

My burning vengeance shall pursue these Tarquins ! 

Ne'er shall my limbs know rest till they are swept 

From off the earth, which groans beneath their infamy ! 

This, from the bottom of my soul, I swear ! [Bises, 

Valerius, Collatine, Lucretius, — all — 

Here, I adjure ye by this fatal dagger, 

All stained and reeking with her sacred blood, 

Be partners in my oath — revenge her fall ! 

All. We swear ! 

Bru. Well have ye said : and, oh, methinks I see 
The hovering spirit of the murdered matron 
Look down and bow her airy head to bless you ! 

[ Citizens come croviding together.] 

Friends ! Romans ! Countrymen ! (for hither see 

The thronging citizens, with curious gaze, 

From every side direct their hurrying steps !) 

Ask ye what brings us here ? Behold this dagger, 

Clotted with gore ! Behold that frozen corse ! 

See where the lost Lucretia sleeps in death ! 

She was the mark and model of the time, 

The very shrine and sacristy of virtue ! 

Fairer than ever was a form created 

By youthful fancy when the blood strays wild, 

And never resting thought is all on fire ! 

The worthiest of the worthy ! Oh, my countrymen ! 

You all can witness, when that she went forth, 

It was a holiday in Rome ; old age 

Forgot its crutch, labor its task, — all ran ; 

And mothers, turning to their daughters, cried, 

"There, there's Lucretia !" Now, look ye, where she lies ! 

That beauteous flower, that innocent sweet rose, 

Torn up by ruthless violence — gone ! gone ! gone ! 

All. Sextus shall die ! [/Shout, 

Bru. But then — the king — his father — 

1st Bom. What shall be done with him? 

2d Bom. Speak, Brutus ! 

3d Bom. Tell us! Tell" us ! 

Bru. Say, would you seek instruction ? would ye ask 
What ye should do ? — 
Ask yon deserted street where Tullfa drove 
O'er her dead father's corse, 'twill cry, Revenge ! 
Ask yonder senate-house, whose stones are purple 
With human blood, and it will cry, Revenge ! 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 457 

Go to the tomb where lies his murdered wife, 
And the poor queen, who loved him as her son, 
Their unappeased ghosts will shriek, Revenge ! 
The temples of the gods, the all-viewing heavens, 
The gods themselves, shall justify the cry, 
And swell the general sound, Revenge ! Revenge! 

All. Revenge ! Revenge ! 

Bru. And we will be revenged, my countrymen ! 
Brutus shall lead you on ; Brutus, a name 
Which will, when you're revenged, be dearer to him 
Than all the noblest titles earth can boast. \8>hout* 

1st Horn. Down with Tarquin ! 

2d Horn. Well have no Tarquins ! 

3d Horn. We will have a Brutus ! 

1st Horn. Let's to the Capitol, and shout for Brutus ! 

Bru. I your king ? 
Brutus your king ? — No, fellow-citizens ! 
If mad ambition in this guilty frame 
Had strung one kingly fibre, — yea, but one — 
By all the gods, this dagger which I hold 
Should rip it out, though it entwined my heart. 

Vol. Then I am with thee, noble, noble Brutus ! 
Brutus, the new restored ! Brutus, by Sibyl, 
By Pythian prophetess foretold, shall lead us ! 

Bru. Now take the body up. Bear it before us 
To Tarquin's palace ; there we'll light our torches, 
And, in the blazing conflagration, rear 
A pile for these chaste relics, that shall send 
Her soul amongst the stars. 
On ! Romans, on ! The fool shall set you free ! 

[Mceunt — the mob shouting.'] 



458 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

THE ROMAN FATHEE. - 
From the Tragedy of Brutus, by J. Howard Payne. 

Characters : — Brutus, Collatinus, Valerius, Centurion, soldiers 

AND FOLLOWERS. 

Scene I. — A street in Borne. 

Enter Brutus and Collatinus.* the Consuls, with Lictors, 
Valerius, and numerous followers^ l. 

JBru. You judge me rightly, friends. The purpled robe, 
The curule chair, the lictor's keen-edged axe, 
Rejoice not Brutus ; 'tis his country's freedom ! 
When once that freedom shall be firmly rooted, 
Then with redoubled pleasure, will your consul 
Exchange the splendid miseries of power 
For the calm comforts of a happy home. 

Enter a Centurion, r. 

Cent. Health to Brutus ! 
Shame and confusion to the foes of Rome ! 

JBru. Now, without preface, to your business. 

Cent. As I kept watch at the Quirinal gate, 
Ere break of day an armed company 
Burst on the sudden through the barrier guard, 
Pushing their course for Ardea. Straight alarmed, 
I wheeled my cohort round, and charged 'em home : 
Sharp was the conflict for a while, and doubtful, 
Till, on the seizure of Tarquinia's person, 
A young Patrician — 

JBru. Ha ! Patrician ? 

Cent. Such 
His dress bespoke him, though to me unknown. 

JBru. Proceed ! — What more ? 

Cent. The lady being taken, 
This youth, the life and leader of the band, 
His sword high waving in the act to strike, 
Dropped his uplifted weapon, and at once 
Yielded himself my prisoner. Oh, Valerius, 
What have I said, that thus the consul changes ? 

JBru. Why do you pause ? Go on. 

Cent. Their leader seized, 
The- rest surrendered. Him, a settled gloom 



DIALOGUES, OEIGTNAL AND SELECTED. 459 

Possesses wholly, nor, as I believe, 

Hath a word passed his lips to all my questions 

Still obstinately shut. 

Bru. Bring him before us. [Exit Centurion, E. 

Veil. Oh,my brave friend, horror invades my heart. 

Bru. Silence — be calm. 

Veil. I know thy soul 
A compound of all excellence, and pray 
The mighty gods to put thee to no trial 
Beyond a mortal's bearing. 

Bru. No, they will not — 
Nay, be secure — they cannot. Pr'ythee, friend, 
Look out, and if the worst that can befall me 
Be verified, turn back, and give some sign 
What thou hast seen. — Thou canst excuse this weakness, 
Being thyself a father. [ Valerius gives the signJ] 

Ha ! enough ! 

I understand thee : — Since it must be so, 
Do your great pleasure, gods ! Now, now it comes ! 

Titus brought in, e., gueirded. 

Tit. My father ! — Give me present death, ye powers ! 

Gent. What have I done ! — Art thou the son of Brutus ? 

Tit. No, Brutus scorns to father such a son ! 
Oh, venerable judge, wilt thou not speak? 
Turn not away ; hither direct thine eyes, 
And look upon this sorrow-stricken form, 
Then to thine own great heart remit my plea, 
And doom as nature dictates. 

Veil. Peace, — you'll anger him — 
Be silent, and await ! Oh, suffering mercy, 
Plead in a father's heart, and speak for nature ! 

[Brutus turns away from his son, waves his hand to the 

Centurion to remove him to ei farther distance, and 
then wedks forweird emd calls Collatinus down to 
him, l. 

Bru. Come hither, Collatinus. The deep wound 
You suffered in the loss of your Lucretia, 
Demanded more than fortitude to bear ; 
I saw your agony — I felt your woe — 

Col. You more than felt it — you revenged it, too. 

Bru. But, ah ! my brother consul, your Lucretia 
Fell nobly, as a Roman spirit should — 
She fell, a model of transcendent virtue. 

Col. My mind misgives. What dost thou aim at, Brutus ? 



460 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Bru. [Almost overpowered.] That youth — my Titus — was 
my age's hope — 
I loved him more than language can express — 
I thought him born to dignify the world. 

Col. My heart bleeds for you. — He may yet be saved — 

Bru. [Firmly.] Consul, — for Rome I live — not for myself: 
I dare not trust my firmness in this crisis, 
Warring 'gainst everything my soul holds dear ! 
Therefore return without me to the Senate — 
Haply my presence might restrain their justice. 
Look that these traitors meet their trial straight, — 
And then despatch a messenger to tell me 
How the wise fathers have disposed of — Go ! 

[Exit Collatings. 

Tit. A word, for pity's sake. Before thy feet, 

[ To Brutus, 
Humbled in soul, thy son and prisoner kneels — 
Love is my plea : a father is my judge ; 
Nature my advocate ! — I can no more : 
If these will not appease a parent's heart, 
Strike through them all, and lodge thy vengeance here ! 

Bru. Break off! I will not, cannot hear thee further! 
The affliction nature hath imposed on Brutus, 
Brutus will suffer as he may. — Enough 
That we enlarge Tarquinia. Go, be free ! 
Centurion, give her conduct out of Rome ! 
Lictors, secure your prisoner. Point your axes. 
To the Senate — On ! [Exeunt Titus and Guards, l. 

Bru. [Alone.] Like a lost, guilty wretch I look around 
And start at every footstep, lest it bring 
The fatal news of my poor son's conviction ! 
Oh ! Rome, thou little know'st — No more — It comes ! 

Enter Valerius, l. 

Val. My friend, the Senate have to thee transferred 
The right of judgment on thy son's offence. 

Bru. To the! 

Val. To thee alone. 

Bru. What of the rest ? 

Val. Their sentence is already passed. 
E'en now, perhaps, the lictor's dreaded hand 
Cuts off their forfeit lives. 

Bru. Say'st thou, that the Senate have to me referred 
The fate of Titus? 

Val. Such is their sovereign will. 
They think you merit this distinguished honor. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 461 

A father's grief deserves to be revered : 
Rome will approve whatever you decree. 

Bru. And is his guilt established beyond doubt ? 

Val. Too clearly. 

Bru. [ With a burst of tears.] Oh, ye gods ! ye gods ! 
[ Collecting himself.] Valerius ! 

Val. What would'st thou, noble Roman ? 

Bru. 'Tis said thou hast pulled down thine house, Valerius, 
The stately pile that with such cost was reared. 

Val. I have ; but what doth Brutus then infer ? 

Bru. It was a goodly structure : I remember 
How fondly you surveyed its rising grandeur. — 
With what a— fatherly — delight you summoned 
Each grace and ornament, that might enrich 
The — child — of your creation, — till it swelled 
To an imperial size, and overpeered 
The petty citizens, that humbly dwelt 
Under its lofty walls, in huts and hovels, 
Like emmets at the foot of tow'ring -ZEtna : 
Then, noble Roman, then with patriot zeal, 
Dear as it was, and valued, you condemned 
And levelled the proud pile ; and, in return, 
Were by your grateful countrymen surnamed 
And shall to all posterity descend, — 
Poplicola. 

Val. Yes, Brutus, I conceive 
The awful aim and drift of thy discourse — 
But I conjure thee, pause ! Thou art a father. 

Bru. I am a Roman consul ! — What, my friend, 
Shall no one but Valerius love his country 
Dearer than house, or property, or children ? 
Now, follow rae ; — and, in the face of Heaven, 
I'll mount the judgment seat : there, see if Brutus 
Feel not for Rome as warmly as Poplicola. \JEheunt, r. 

Scene II. — Exterior of the Temple of Mars. — Senators, 
Citizens, Collatinus and Lucretius, discovered. At l. 
of Stage, a Tribunal, with a Consular Chair upon it. 

Brutus enters, r., followed by Valerius — he bows as he 

passes, and ascends the Tribunal. 

Bru. Romans, the blood which hath been shed this day 
Hath been shed wisely. Traitors, who conspire 
Against mature societies, may urge 
Their acts as bold and daring ; and though villains, 
Yet they are manly villains — But to stab 



462 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

The cradled innocent, as these have done, — 
To strike their country in the mother-pangs 
Of struggling child-birth, and direct the dagger 
To freedom's infant throat, — is a deed so black, 
That my foiled tongue refuses it a name. 
There is one criminal still left for judgment — 
Let him approach. 

[Titus is brought in by the lictors, with their axes 
turned edgewise towards him. 
Pris-on-er. — [The voice of Urutus falters, and is choked, 

and he exclaims, with violent emotion,] 
Romans, forgive this agony of grief — 
My heart is bursting! — nature must have way — 
I will perform all that a Roman should ; — 
I cannot feel less than a father ought ! 

[He becomes more calm, gives a signal to the lictors to 
fall bach, and advances from the judgment-seat to the 
front of the stage, on a line vrith his son. 
Well, Titus, speak — how is it with thee now ? 
Tell me, my son, art thou prepared to die ? 

Tit. Father, I call the powers of heaven to witness ^ 
Titus dares die, if so you have decreed. 
The gods will have it so ? 

JBru. They will, my Titus : 
Nor heaven, nor earth, can have it otherwise. 
It seems as if thy fate were pre-ordained 
To fix the reeling spirits of the people, 
And settle the loose liberties of Rome. 
'Tis fixed ; — oh, therefore, let not fancy cheat thee ! 
So fixed thy death that 'tis not in the power 
Of mortal man to save thee from the axe. 

Tit, The axe !— O Heaven !— Then must I fall so basely? 
What, shall I perish like a common felon ? 

JBru. How else do traitors suffer ? — Nay, Titus, more — 
I must myself ascend yon sad tribunal, 
And there behold thee meet this shame of death, 
With all thy hopes, and all thy youth upon thee, — 
See thy head taken by the common axe, — 
All, — if the gods can hold me to my purpose, — 
Without one groan, without one pitying tear. 

[Turns, as if in agony. 

Tit. Die like a felon ? — Ha ! a common felon ! — 
But I deserve it all : — yet here I fail : — 
This ignominy quite unmans me ! 
Oh, Brutus, Brutus ! Must I call you father, [Kneels. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 463 

Yet have no token of your tenderness, 
!N"o sign of mercy ? ISTot even leave to fall 
As noble Romans fall, by my own sword ? 
Father, why should you make my heart suspect 
That all your late compassion was dissembled ? 
How can I think that you did ever love me ? 

Bru. Think that I love thee by my present passion, 
By these unmanly tears, these earthquakes here, 
These sighs that strain the very strings of life, — 
Let these convince you that no other cause 
Could force a father thus to wrong his nature. 

Tit. Oh, hold, thou violated majesty ; [JRises. 

I now submit with calmness to my fate. 
Come forth, ye executioners of justice — • 
Come, take my life, — and give it to my country ! 

Bru. Embrace thy wretched father. May the gods 
Arm thee with patience in this awful hour. 
The sovereign magistrate of injured Rome 
Condemns 

A crime, thy father's bleeding heart forgives. 
Go — meet thy death with a more manly courage 
Than grief now suffers me to show in parting; 
And, while she punishes, let Rome admire thee ! 
Farewell ! Eternally farewell ! — 

Tit. Oh, Brutus I Oh, my father ! — 

Bru. What would'st thou say, my son ? 

Tit. Farewell, forever ! 

Bru. Forever ! \Re-ascends the Tribunal. 
Lictors, attend ! — conduct your pris'ner forth ! 

Vol. [Bap idly and anxiously.] Whither ? 

\^ill the characters bend forward in great anxiety. 
Bru. To death ! — [ All start.] When you do reach the 
spot, 
My hand shall wave your signal for the act, 
Then let the trumpet's sound proclaim it done ! 

[Titus is conducted out by the lictors, e. — A dead 
march, — which gradually dies away as it becomes 

( more distant. Brutus remains seated in a. melan- 

choly posture on the Tribunal. 

Poor youth, thy pilgrimage is at an end ! 

A few sad steps have brought thee to the brink 

Of that tremendous precipice, whose depth 

No thought of man can fathom. Justice now 

Demands her victim ! A little moment 

And I am childless. — One effort, and 'tis past ! 



464 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

[He rises, in agitation, and waves his hand, then drops 
into his seat, and shrouds his face with his toga. 
Three sounds of the trumpet are heard, all the charac- 
ters assume attitudes of deep misery. Brutus starts 
up wildly, comes forward in extreme agitation, looks 
out for an instant on the side by which Titus de- 
parted, and then, with a hysterical burst, exclaims,] 

Justice is satisfied, and Rome is free ! 

[Brutus falls. The characters group around him."] 



BEFORE AND AFTER THE BATTLE OF SHEEP'S RUN.* 

Characters :— Maj.-Gen. Fogey, Colonel Feathers, Capt. Punkin, 
Lieut. Wait, Corporal Blunt, Private Gore. 

Col. F. Little did I think, when I accepted the office of 
Colonel in the militia, that I should ever be called into action. 
Who'd ever a thought that this ere confounded rebellion 
would* broke out, after all we've done in Puddletown to- 
wards compromisin' and soothin' our Southern brethren? 
And who'd a thought that the regiment in our county would 
'a up and offered their service to the government, right away- 
after my great speech on the Dangers of Abolishun and the 
Blessings of Peace ? Well, I was obleeged to ''bout face, 
and go into it — and here I am camped out on the upper 
waters of the Squabosh, and expecting every day to be 
attacked by the Arkansas chivalry, who are the born lords 
of creation, and will whip us as a matter of course. I wish 
I was well out of this scrape, and safe at home among my 
cabbages. 

Fortunately my men haven't any suspicion yet of the state 
of my nerves.' They think I'm as brave as Julius Caesar. 
Let me see if I'm perfect in my speech to 'em ; it '11 never 
do to break down on that ! 

[Takes out a manuscript and recites from it.] 

" Fellow-sojers ! descendants of the Revolution and the 
Mexikin war ! The foot of the invaded is on our sile ! Or 
our foot is on the invader's sile, which amounts to pretty 
much the same. Our glorious Kedentry has been split into 

* Founded on two dialogues in Mr. Epes Sargent's excellent volume 
" Original Dialogues." 
\ 



DIALOGUES, OKIGINAL AND SELECTED. 465 

fcw.enfy thousand fragments, and the American eagle calls on 
all her young, in tones of pathos, to take up arms, 'and pre- 
ventuate the dangers that threatens it. The perfiduous foe 
has already crossed the Squawbosset creek on a spontoon 
saw-log, and will ye quail ? I don't see it ! Sojers ! the eyes 
of the world are on you ; the bar-stangled flag-staff waves 
over you ; forward, then, to battle — to victory — and to lib- 
erty !" 

There ! that's not so bad, I take it. I must despatch it, 
this very day, to my old friend of the Puddletown Clarion of 
Freedom. A good sojer allays looks out afTer " a fire in the 
rear," — and we mustn't forgit the fountings of public opinion 
to hum. And re'ly, I don't know but I might venter to tight 
just a little ; I don't believe the danger is so awful much ; if 

I could onlj^ ■ Ah ! here comes that ere pusillanimous 

Captain Punkin .! He's wuss than I am. He's in a chronic 
shiver every minute, that chap ! It's enough to give a feller 
the ager, to look at him ! 

[Miter Captain" Punkin.] 

Capt. P. I say, Colonel, d-do you think there's any danger 
of their comin' ? 

Col. F Danger ? Of course, there's danger ! What do 
you s'pose we come for ? Are the scouts in yet ? 

Capt. P. Not yet. We're expectin' 'em every minute. 
Colonel, I believe you've never been in action ? 

Col. F. jSTo, sir ; but my grandfather was one of our coun- 
try's brave defenders ; — he was in the great Whisky Rebel- 
lion. 

Capt. P. Ah — yes ! But if I don't disremember, he didn't 
serve under government. 

Col. F. Ahem ! a — well, to be sure, he — rather — served 
under Shay ; but then it showed he had the spirit in him — 
and it is to this great ancestral fact, sir, that I probably owe 
my present exalted position, and equivocal prospects — ahem ! 
[ With importance.] 

Capt. P. {Approaching doubtfully.'] Colonel, I — a — be- 
lieve it isn't expected of the officers in a battle, to — to expose 
themselves like the common soldiers ; is it ? 

Col. F. Well, Captain, as everything depends on the safety 
of the commanding officer, it is customary for the Colonel to 
keep out of danger as fur as he kin ; but captains always hev 
to lead an attack, at the head of "their companies. 

Capt. P. Is th-th-that always expected ? 

Col. F. That's the invariable rule, Captain Punkin. You 
must keep in advance of your men, drawin' your sword and 



4G6 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

wavin' it on high, and encouragin' on 'em all you kin, by hol- 
lerin', " Foller your Capting to glory or the grave," and sich 
things. 

Gapt. P. Oh yes, — I see — of course ; but — Colonel, I'm not 
a proud man. There are several tall fellows in my company 
I would be willin' to resign my place to. There are other 
positions to which I think my talents better adapted — such 
now, for instance, as bearer of despatches home, after the 
victory I 

Col. F. I'm perfectly satisfied with you, Captain Punkin, 
and couldn't think of dispensing with your valuable services. 
All that you've got to do, as I tell you, is to be constantly in 
advance, keep your sword waving, and, when you're shot 
down, cry out : " Victory ! On ! on ! don't mind me, my 
brave fellows !" • 

Gapt. P. Oh ! that's all, is it ? 
[A sharp roll of the drum is heard. The Colonel and 
Captain both start, and tremblingly take hold of each 
other.'] 

Col. F. Eh ? What's that ? I wish they wouldn't make 
that thing go in that sudden, unexpected sort of way ! 
Gapt. P. That's the d-diddy-drum, I guess. 
Col. F. It sounded like a drum. 
Gapt. P. I wonder wh-what 'twas for ! 

[Enter Corporal Blunt.] 

Corp. The scouts are in, Colonel, and report that a body 
of the enemy, one thousand strong, are advancing, and must 
now be within a mile and a half of our outposts. 

Col. F. So near ? I think we'd better retreat. 

Corp. Retreat, Colonel ? What for ?. We are one to two, 
and that's about fair odds, seeing we're Yankees ! 

Gapt. P. The Colonel knows b-b-best what ought to be 
done. 

Corp. Why, Captain, you look kind of pale. 

Col. F. The Captain's always pale when he's excited. 
[Taking the Corporal aside.'] An awful fellow in a fight, that 
Captain Punkin ! The bloodiest-minded man-slayer I ever 
led into action. 

Corp. He doesn't shoio it. His teeth chatter as if he was 
scared. 

Col. F. Nothing but nervous excitement ! Jest wait till 
he gits a smell of the enemy. Then the raal tiger grit will 
bust out, and you'll find you can't hold him in. 

[Another sudden roll of the drum.] 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 467 

Capt. P. [Starting.'] Good gracious ! what's all that for ? 
Col. F Corporal, I wish that drummer wouldn't do it 
quite so sudden ; it kind o' starts a feller. 

[Miter Private Gore.] 

Gore. The enemy are not a mile off! We want to be at 
'em, Colonel. Any objection to our taking post on the next 
hill ? The boys say they can't hold in any longer. They'll 
jump out of their boots, if you don't give the word soon. 

Col. F. They can't hold in, eh ? Here's insubordination ! 
Tell 'em I'll have 'em all court-martialled and shot, if they 
don't obey my orders. They're to wait till I give the word. 
D'ye hear ? 

Gore. Ay, ay, Colonel. [Aside to Corporal.] I see how 
it is ! The old butcher wants to manage it so that not one 
of them bloody rebels shall escape to tell the tale. 

Corp. Yes, that's it. He means to retreat a little, and 
draw 'em further on, and then surround 'em and cut 'em to 
pieces. Oh ! he's a terrible feller ! 

Gore. Just like him ! [Exeunt Corp. and Gore. 

Col. F. Now, Cap ting, rouse up ! You're in for it, and 
there's no escape. The sojers have orders to shoot any one 
that runs from the field. It would be awk'ard for them to 
make the first example of you. 

Capt. P. But, Colonel, my knees are so shaky that I can 
hardly put one leg before the other. I'm not fit for my post. 
I own it. I'm willing to resign. 

Col. F. It can't be, Captain Punkin ! You must make the 
best of it now. Ef there's one thing I lot on, and toill hev in 
the officers, it is bravery. Take this speech and read it to 
the men. I'm rather hoarse, or I'd deliver it myself. But 
there's nuthin' mean about me ; and I'm willin' you should 
have the honor. Now, cheer up, Captain ! Only think of 
' the glory of fallin' in your country's cause ! Think of the 
splendid funeral we shall give you ! There's no end to the 
rounds we shall fire over your grave. 

Capt. P. You're very good, Colouel Feathers, but I'm not 
ambitious. If I'm sh-sh-shot, I shan't care much about the 
glory. 

Col. F. Now, remember my orders, Capting. You're to 
place yourself at the head of your men ; and, the minute the 
inimy are within rifle-shot, you're to give the order to fire. 
You then re-load, and make a dash at 'em with bayonets and 
loaded pieces. • 

Capt. P. But what if I should 4 want to order a retreat, 
Colonel ? 



468 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Col. F. Well, if you find you're likely to be overpowered, 
and that a retreat is the next best thing, you must draw off 
your men in an orderly manner. Lead them through that 
ere cow-pasture, into the ten-acre lot yonder [pointing] ; and 
then on to the dike over the marsh that leads into old Secesh 
Grumbleberry's pine woods. Kin ye remember ? 

Capt. P. No fear of my forgitting that part of your in- ■ 
structions, Colonel. 

Col. F. Well, then, everything depends on you. I'll take 
my spy-glass onto the top of that mounting, wljere I can 
superintend the battle. Good-bye, Capting ! " Go where 
glory waits ye !" [Exit, in haste. 

C'apt. P. [ Calling after him.] Colonel ! Colonel Feathers ! 
One word more ! Gone ? And all the responsibility left to 
me ! What on earth shall I do ? [Drum.] There it goes 
again ! O dear ! I feel powerful faint already ; what shall I 
be when the enemy comes in sight. What's this thing he's 
given me to spout to the sojers ? Perhaps it will give me a 
little heart. [Looks at manuscript, and begins to read to 
himself, gesticulating. ] 

Enter Corporal Blunt and Private Gore. 

Corp. [to Gore.] Yes, I was in the wrong. I see he's 
game to the back-bone. Who'd 'a thought it ? Amusin' him- 
self in that way, just on the brink of a battle! Wa'al, it's a 
pity we aint a-goin' to hev any fight after all. 

Capt. P. [Aside and without turning.] What is that I 
hear ? 

Gore. Yes, the Colonel will be awfully disappointed to find 
it turned out to be a false alarm. 

Capt. P. [Aside.] A false alarm ? 

Corp. I don't believe there's a rebel within twenty miles. 

Capt. P. Upon my word, how much better I feel ! 

Core. The boys mustered well, though. 

Capt. P. [Drawing his sword, flourishing it, and wholly 
changing his manner^] Now, my lads, it's time to be at them I 
[Goes to the side,shouting.] " Feller-sojers ! Descendants 
of the Revolution and the Mexikin War ! — 

Corp. It's no use, Captain, our fun is all spoiled. 

Capt. P. What's the matter ? 

Corp. It's all a false alarm. There are no rebels any where 
near us. 

Capt. P. [Indignantly.] No rebels ? No enemy ? Do 
th§ miscreants dare to trifle with us ! Thunder and light- 
ning ! sir, there must be an enemy ! Blood must flow some- 
where ; is there nobody we can fight ? 



DIALOGUES, OEIGINAL AND SELECTED. 469 

Corp. The men are quite as mad as you are, Captain ; but 
there's no help for it. 

Enter Col. Feathers hastily. 

Col. F. Captain Punkin, dismiss your men. Captain, your 
hand. [Grasps his hand and shakes it heartily^] Your 
eagerness and courage, in answering your country's call, are 
worthy of the highest praise. Corporal, your good conduct 
shall be reported. Private Gore, the men have acted nobly. 

[Exit Goee, 
Capt. P. [Shouting .] Silence in the ranks-! Forward — 

Drum beats violently; he staggers bade. 
Col. F. Confound that drummer ! 

Enter Goee, rushing in. 

Gore. Colonel, the enemy are upon us ! The pickets are 
driven in, and a force one thousand strong are just in sight 
on the south road. 

Col. F. Captain Punkin, form your men in order of battle ! 
Every man to his post ! I shall repair to mine, without a 
moment's delay. 

Capt. P. [Who has bee?i standing petrified!] M-m-march! 
[Retiring drum.] 

Scene II. — After the Battle. 
Enter Capt. Punkin and Lieut. Wait meeting. 

Capt. P. My dear Wait, how are you ? Never was face 
of friend more welcome. [Shakes ha?ids.] Have you any 
idea what they are going to do with me ? 

Wait. Why, Punkin, my boy, what's the matter with you ? 
Tour hand trembles like an aspen leaf. 

Capt. P. Why, don't you know, Major-General Fogy, the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Department, has sent for me? 
What do you think will come of it ? I am prepared — no, 
unprepared — for the worst. 

Wait. Well, probably it has some reference to the battle 
of yesterday, at which you are said to have behaved so well 
Perhaps the General wants to thank you for your gallantry. 

Capt. P. My gallantry ! Oh come, now ! Stop that ! 
But tell me frankly, my dear fellow ; will it be a hanging or 
a shootin? matter, eh ? [Anxiously!] 

Wait. Why, what under heaven are you talking about ? 
What " matter," man? 

Capt. P. Why, my — a — indisposition; my — ahem — my 



470 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

sudden absquatulation at the beginning of the action. Couldn't 
I get my punishment commuted to something or other " for 
life ?" 

Wait. I haven't heard the first word against your conduct ; 
but, on the contrary, everything in your praise. What was 
it ? Explain. 

Capt. P. Oh dear ! oh dear ! What a fool I was to 
volunteer ! I might have known I was a — hem ! I hadn't 
been a week down here among these confounded woods and 
marshes, with seceshers popping off pickets every few nights 
and daily prospects of a muss, before I found out I was a — 
well, I may as well out with it — a coward, there ! 

Wait. Why didn't you resign ? At best, soldiering is a 
poor business. Look at me, a graduate of West Point and 
ten years in the service — years spent amidst privations in the 
wilderness and fights with the Indians and nothing but a 
poor lieutenant yet. 

Capt. P. Well now, my good fellow, don't interrupt me 
with that nonsense. I couldn't resign ; I was going to run 
for the legislature in the spring ; don't you see I could not 
resign ? Well, when the battle was sprung on us all of a 
sudden, yesterday, and I found myself at the head of the 
troops, in a very exposed situation, and the balls began to 
rattle round me, I just resolved to — to — to run away, you 
know. But the enemy began immediately to retreat, and I 
took heart again. We followed on at a double-quick, for 
about a half-a-mile, when they turned and made a stand, and 
commence*d pouring in the bullets among us like hail. I was 
just well-nigh scared out of my wits ; but I did not dare to 
run, for fear of my own men. But presently a chap was 
knocked over, right at my side, and that started me. I broke 
for a belt of trees on a little knoll not far from the road, which 
promised shelter — yelling with terror, as I went. A party 
of fellows sprang after me, with bayonets at full charge, 
howling like so many wolves, trying to run me down. Driven 
to desperation,! glared at 'em over my shoulder, and screamed 
frantically " Follow me, and I'll be the death of you !" and 
then rushed on, up the knoll, waving my sword and bellow- 
ing like a madman. We had almost reached the copse, when 
three or four cannon shot blazed out of it — passing clear over 
the heads of the party. But it was too late to stop, and I 
leaped wildly over the mound which had been hidden by the 
underbrush and found myself among a parcel of chaps not 
uniformed like our folks, (who looked as much scared as I 
did,) and sank fainting to the ground. 

When I came to my senses, I found myself in comfortable 



DIALOGUES, OKIGINAL AND SELECTED. 471 

quarters with the surgeon at my side. Some fellow — I don't 
know whether one of our folks or a rebel — had given me a 
bayonet thrust in the shoulder ; but it don't amount to much. 
And I don't care much either, that the whole regiment wit- 
nessed my flight and chased me — but oh, this court-martial 
business ! That makes my blood run cold again ! 

Wait. Hark ! I hear the General coming. 

Capt. P. Oh good gracious ! Now for it. Stand by me, 
Wait ! I say — if he gives me my choice between being hung 
and being shot, which would you take ? 

Wait. Well, shooting is the most military. 

Capt. P. Then I'll choose hanging. > 

Wait. Hush ! the General is here. 

Enter Maj.-Gen. Fogy and Staff. 

Gen. Fogy. Captain Punkin, your hand ! [Shakes ha?ids.] 
Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the hero of Sheep's 
Run ! [The officers boio.] Yes, gentlemen, I do not hesitate 
to declare that, but for the amazing gallantry of Captain 
Punkin, in carrying the masked battery, into range of which 
our men had been led by the stratagem of the enemy — but 
for the desperate valor which led him up that hill into the 
very teeth of their cannon, cheering on his troops by the 
most inspiring shouts, and performing prodigies with his sin- 
gle arm — but for that brilliant and sagacious achievement, 
undertaken on his own responsibility, and carried out by his 
own individual daring and exposure — the Battle of Sheep's 
Run would have been to us an occasion of disaster and de- 
feat, instead of triumph. [Applause from Wait and the 
officers.'] 

Capt. P. I say, Wait; what does it all mean? Is he 
gassing me ? [Aside to Wait.] 

Wait. Certainly not. Old Fogy never " gasses." You're 
a mighty lucky fellow. Say something in reply. 

Capt. P. [To the General.'] Old Fogy — excuse me — that 
is, I mean General Fogy — I — you — he — we — that is — 

Gen. F. Captain Punkin, I see your embarrassment ; and 
it is as becoming, sir, as your valor. Modesty is ever the 
companion of true merit. 

Capt. P. Really, old Fo — I mean General, General Fogy, 
I —upon my word, — I — in short — the American eagle — the 
American eagle I say — long may she wave. — [Gesticulates 
without speaking.] 

Gen. F Captain Punkin, it is not every man who can 
talk as well as act. We excuse, nay, admire your diffidence. 
And yet, at the proper time, you do not fail, even in speech. 



472 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Gentlemen, what do you suppose were the immortal words 
with which he kindled the enthusiasm of his soldiers at the 
decisive moment ? " Follow me," said he ; "follow me and 
I will be the death of you !" 

Capt. P. Oh, good gracious ! stand by me, Wait, or I 
shall sink. 

Gen. F Sublime, heroic exclamation ! " Follow me, and 
I will be the death of you !" An exclamation, gentlemen, 
which placed death — death in the cause of our country — fore- 
most, as the impelling motive to a brave action. Nobly did 
our gallant troops respond to the intrepid call. Nobly did 
they follow their devoted leader up that ascent, and against 
that terrible battery, till, faint and wounded, he sank on the 
ground in the very embrace of victory. [All applaud by 
dapping their hands.] 

Capt. P. I can't stand it any longer, "Wait ; I'm in a cold 
sweat all over ! 

Gen. F. I see it pains you, Captain Punkin, to have your 
own praises sounded. Your grateful country, sir, will com- 
pel you to hear far more than I can offer. It is now my 
unspeakable pleasure to inform you that the President of the 
United States, as the organ of your country, with that keen- 
sighted discrimination which has ever so eminently distin- 
guished him, both in the making and unmaking — the appoint- 
ment and removal of officers, has directed me, by telegraph, 
to promote you to the rank of Brigadier General. Your 
wound entitles you to a furlough of six months ; you will 
proceed immediately to Washington, and there receive your 
commission as bearer of dispatches. I have the honor, Gene- 
ral Punkin, to wish you a very good day. [Shakes hands 
with P., as also do the officers of his staffs who bow pro- 
foundly, and go out.] 

Gen. P. [Looking comically at Wait.] I say, Wait, 
what do you think of that ? 

Wait. [Bursts out laughing^] Ha ! ha ! ha ! this is one 
of the fortunes of war, sure enough ! You expected eleva- 
tion, but not exactly of this kind, eh ? 

Gen. P. Certainly not ; — rather more after this fashion. 
[Making a sign with his finger to his neck, to indicate hang- 
ing.] But I say, that legislature business is rather a sure 
thing, is'nt it ! 

Wait. Sure as the crack of doom ! And upon my word, 
Punkin, I think you deserve your laurels as well as half of 
the Brigadiers. Long may you live to wear them ! 

Gen. P. Oh, trust me for that ! And, Wait, my boy, you 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 473 

shan't be neglected any longer. I shall place you, with the 
rank of Colonel, on my staff. 

Wait. Thank you, my dear fellow ! I couldn't have a safer 
place. You won't think of going into action again ? 

Gen. P. Not I. Trust me for that ! I'll soon manage to 
pick a political quarrel with the administration, and then 
they'll lay me on the shelf with a few score of others, and 
forget all about me. 

Wait. Well, General, you may succeed, but it takes a 
pretty smart man to get laid on the shelf! 

[They go out as they tailed] 



HUSH! OE, THE GRAND MASTEE OF THE K. G. 0. 

Characters. — Doddlewobble, a conservative, non-committal old 
bachelor ; Dingbatter, his patriotic partner ; Caesar, an " intelli- 
gent contraband ;" Walter, nephew and clerk to Doddlewobble ; 
Blimber, Fudgit, Racket, comrades and accomplices of Walter. 

Scene I. 

[An apartment in Mr. Doddlewobble' s house. Side 
doors r. and l. Two hi back. Mr. D. discovered 
reading the paper at a table set out for breakfast. 

Dodd. Was ever a man in such a terrible stew as I ? A 
quiet bachelor for fifty-five years, with nothing to move me 
from the even tenor of my way, and at this late day to be so 
fearfully shaken up and disarranged by this " cruel war." 
It is'nt so much that the house of Doddlewobble & Dingbat- 
ter lost fifty thousand dollars by their Southern connections, 
though that is bad enough, but the confusion and doubt and 
difficulty that still exists about every body and every thing, 
is enough to drive one crazy. There's my nephew, Walter, 
a poor clerk in my store, has gone and enlisted in the 14th 
Volunteers, and now wants to marry my rich ward, Clara, 
before he is off to the war ; and Clara wants to marry him ; 
and my old partner, Dingbatter, who has gone stark, staring 
mad, with what he calls patriotism, wants him to have her. 
It seems to me everybody is standing on his head. And gold 
at 157, and exchange according — and radicalism rampant, 
and the whole country swimming on a sea of greenbacks — 
good Heavens ! what will come of it all ; and which way shall 
a man turn for a quiet life ? 

The very newspapers conspire to increase this confusion. 
'Now, just see here ! Dispatch in the Herald : "The enemy 



474 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

fled before our advancing troops without firing a gun." Now 
that's well enough. I've not the slightest objection to any 
number of enemies flying any number of times before any 
quantity of guns are fired. If that's their peculiar way of 
enjoying themselves, let them enjoy themselves in their pecu- 
liar way in Heaven's name. But what do you think of this? 
Dispatch in the Times : " Our troops fled before the advan- 
cing enemy without firing a gun !" Hang it, it can't be both, 
you know. It's perfectly distracting ! 

But only look at this ft-om the columns of a single paper. 
[Takes up Tribune.'] Urn ! N. Y. Tribune. [Reads.] 
" General Banks is advancing." " Gen. Banks is retreating." 
" Gen. Banks will not advance." " Gen. Banks has ad- 
vanced." " Gen. Banks was killed in a skirmish last Mon- 
day." " Gen. Banks dined with the Commander-in-Chief on 
Tuesday." " Gen. Banks' body will be sent heme on Wednes- 
day." Gen. Banks made a reconnoissance of the enemy's 
lines on Thursday." 

[Throwing down the paper, and rising angrily^] It's too 
much ! I cannot survive it. If I should drop down this 
minute, the coroner's verdict would be, "Died of our War 
Correspondent ;'' and I do believe they would charitably 
add, " We further think the deceased was of an unsound 
mind, as he was known to be in the habit of reading the 
daily papers." Oh ! my poor head ; my poor head ! 

[Enter C^eSxYr 2 e., r.] 

Ccesar. Ready for your breakfast, sah ? 

Dodd. [Mimicking I\ Ready for my breakfast, sah ? No, 
sah ; I shall never be ready for my breakfast, again, you 
black rascal ! 

Ccesar. Hi ! hi ! take care dar ! take care ! musn't do 
dat ! Times is changed, sah ; and niggers is ris. You 
musn't treat 'em ondisspectful. Massa Doddlewobble, did 
you ebber hear of de impendin' crisis ? 

Dodd. Impending crisis ! I've heard of nothing else for 
the last thirty years. 

Ccesar. Well, den, it am finally impended ; and de niggers 
is de crisis. Well, dey is. Dis chile's one o' de crisises. 
Yah ! yah ! [Laughs.] Lor ! Massa Doddlewobble, dis yer 
war aint 'bout none o' yer white trash ; it's 'bout de niggers. 
De niggers am de war and de crisis bofe. 

Dodd. How dare you stand there and talk in that way ! 

Ccesar. [Grinning.] Kase niggers is de war. 

Dodd. I say, how dare you talk in that manner to me, you 
imp of darkness ? 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 4*75 

Ccesar. [Grinning.'] Kase niggers is de crisis. 

Dodd. Don't you know that I never permit myself to ex- 
press an opinion, nor even to have an opinion on politics? 
What do you mean by talking politics to me f 

Ccesar. [Drawing himself tip consequentially^ Tell you 
what 'tis, Massa Doddlewobble, de time am 'proaching, and 
am pretty much 'proached, when de 'portant political hypote- 
cation of de colored population, must 'tract de consideration 
of the people o' dis yer nation — and dere aint no use tearin' 
your shirt 'bout it. Massa Phillips says dey's on'y jes' two 
indiwids dat can settle dis mus, one's de Lord, and tudder's 
de nigger. Dat's me; Ise de tudder. And when dis yer 
cruel war is over, and de fat offices is handed ronn' in dese 
United States, dis chile is ready to surfer fur his country. 

Dodd. United States! You'd better wait till they are 
united ! 

Ccesar. Well, dey's a-gwine to be ; you kin bet high on 
pat ! And den dis nig' goes in far de sufferin's of de people. 
Oh ! Ise sound on de goose. Ise a Democrat Radical Re- 
publican Union Unconditional Contraban', dat's jist what I is ; 
and you needn't be s'prised if you see a pretty brack nigger 
in de White House, some day. , 

Dodd. Well, if this isn't the very climax of impudence ! 
Get out, you son of midnight, and bring up the breakfast; 
and hark you, if you ever speak a word of politics to me 
again, I'll break every bone in your ngly skin ! 

Ccesar. Well, I guess not, Massa. We aint 'mong de 
seceshers now, you know. Aint I a man and a bother? 
Yah ! yah ! yah ! [Exit, grinning. 

Dodd. A man and a bother! Yes, indeed; the impudent 
rascal ! There's another of the blessings of this revolutionary 
era. Nothing now, anywhere, but niggers. Niggers in the 
kitchen, niggers in the parlor ; niggers in the car, niggers in 
the pew; niggers in the army, niggers in the navy; free 
niggers, runaway niggers, contraband niggers; big niggers, 
little niggers, and niggers in the transition state, tadpole 
niggers ! Go where you will, you stumble over some sort of 
nigger. And then all our comfortable little prejudices must 
be given up — one man as good as another, forsooth ! Yes, 
a confounded sight better, I think. But here comes another 
of my plagues, that patriotic old numskull, Dingbatter. 

Enter Me. Dingbatter, l. 

* Ding. Ah ! good morning Mr. Doddlewobble, at your 
usual morning recreation — reading and cursing the news- 
papers — I see. What is the news to-day? 



476 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Dodd. All sorts of news, Mr. Dingbatter. You pay your 
money, and you take your choice. What will you have, a 
victory or a defeat ? There's the " Morning Blower, only 
two cents. Total annihilation of the Federal army by a hose- 
pipe." If that don't please you, turn to another column, and 
you have the complete destruction of the Secession forces by 
a proclamation of Gen. Butler, or a leading article of the 
New York Tribune. Whew! {Excitedly ^\ .On to Rich- 
mond ! On to Atlanta ! On to Charleston ! Hurra ! On 
to anywhere and anybody ! All for two cents ! 

Ding. Good gracious, Doddle wobble ! how can you treat 
serious subjects with such levity? 

Dodd. Serious, sir ! Serious be hanged ! I don't believe 
in it, sir. It's a humbug, sir ! Blow me if I believe there is 
any war, any army, any navy — any anything but fanaticism, 
shoddy factories, and an inflated currency. By George! it 
wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing was got up — got up, 
sir, for purposes of stock-jobbing and speculation in gold ! 

Ding. Ah, sir ! you may be sure that we are living in very 
serious, but in very glorious times. The whole country is 
undergoing revolution, and, I doubt not, for the better. For 
my own part, I only wish that I was a little younger — or 
that rheumatism and asthma were a little less tyrannical, and 
even as I am, I would go forth to the field, strike one hearty 
blow at my country's enemies, and bring back my old soul 
full of glory. 

Dodd. TJgh! You'd bring back your old carcass full of 
holes, more likely. 

Ding. Well, I suppose you have heard that that noble 
young man, your nephew, is off to the war? 

Dodd. Yes, indeed, Mr. Dingbatter, and I'm glad of it. 
For once I am unaffectedly charmed with a warlike spirit. 
The youth is a hero ; I admire him unspeakably ; and — I hope 
he'll never come back ! 

Ding. Why, my dear sir, how can you say such a thing ? 

Dodd. Because, my dear sir, if he gets a bullet fairly de- 
posited in his empty noddle, there is some slight probability 
that he will cease to annoy me about my ward Clara, whom 
I am determined he shall never marry. There, sir, now I 
hope you are answered. 

Ding. But why this unreasoning, this violent obstinacy 
on a question involving the happiness of two worthy young 
people ? Everybody feels that it would be a most excellent 
match. 

Dodd. Ebenezer Dingbatter! Don't force upon me the 
conviction that you are a lunatic. It is barely possible that I 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 477 

may have grave and weighty reasons for my obstinacy, as 
you politely term it. My ward is wealthy in her own right, 
and my vagabond nephew hasn't a penny he can call his own. 
He is simply a fortune-hunter, and my duty to her dead 
father forbids my consent to so rash a union. 

Ding. And there are some ill-natured enough to say that 
your eye is vastly more turned to the fortune of the daughter, 
than the memory of the father ; and that money might tempt 
you, as love never did, to change your oion condition. 

Dodd. [Pulling at his shirt collar indignantly?^ Mr. 
Dingbatter, sir! Do I look like a man capable of such 
things? How can you gaze into my mild and benevolent 
countenance, and tax me with such monstrous purposes, 
without blushing ? Sir, the Doddlewobblean name never yet 
was tarnished with dishonor. 

Ding. Then why don't you give your consent ? The lad, 
you very well know, has all the qualities that would make her 
happy, and the girl is fretting her very heart out about him. 

Dodd. Bah! don't talk rubbish, sir. It's a physiological 
impossibility for her to do any such thing. Now just sup- 
pose for a moment, Ebenezer Dingbatter, that you were an 
old woman — and it isn't such a very violent supposition, 
either — and that I was a gentleman coming to pay my ad- 
dresses to you. Do you imagine it possible, or even likely, 
that you could fret your heart out about me f 

Ding. Not in the least, I assure you. 

Dodd. [Disconcerted.] Ah — well — ahem ! I didn't mean 
that exactly. Suppose we drop the subject. 

[Enter Walter, l.] 

Wcdter. Ah ! my dear uncle 

Dodd. Well, what the deuce do you want ? 

Walter. I have enlisted, uncle ; and I have come to say 
good-bye. 

Dodd. Not the slightest necessity, sir. Besides, it isn't 
good to stir too deeply the sacred feelings of the soul. How- 
ever, say it quick, and go about your business. 

Walter. But that isn't all, uncle 

Dodd. [Mocking.'] Oh, that isn't all, uncle. Isn't it ? 
Well, what more is there ? 

Walter. You know, sir, how fondly and devotedly I love 
your ward Clara. 

Dodd. Yes, sir, I do. And you know how fondly and de- 
votedly I have refused to listen to your overtures for her 
hand. 

Wcdter. Alas ! yes, sir ; and yet, notwithstanding all that 



478 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

has passed, I have determined to make one last attempt on 
your generosity. 

Dodd. -No, sir! You mean you have come to make one 
last attempt on her fortune. It won't do ! I'll not listen to 
it ! Young man, forbear ! 

Walter. I may not come back alive. 

Dodd. Don't be absurd. You don't^proppse to come back 
dead, do you ? 

Walter. I mean, I may never see her again. 

Dodd. Very likely; I can imagine worse catastrophies. 
Good-morning, sir. JBy-by, sojer ; run along ; double quick ! 

Walter. Oh, sir ! you will not be so cruel as to refuse me 
a last interview with her ? 

Dodd. No; I don't refuse you a last interview with 
her 

Walter. Ah ! generous uncle ! 

Dodd. I refuse you a first interview with her. So please 
to get out ! [Sits down doggedly, ivith his back to Walter, 
and takes up the paper.'] 

Walter. [Aside to Di?igbatter.] You see he is inexorable ; 
I must fall back on our little plot. 

Ding. All right. I'll see to Caesar, and the boys. [Exit. 

Walter. [Approaching Doddleioobble, mysteriously!] Sir ! 
sir ! sh — sh ! 

Dodd. [Looking around, startled^] What do you mean 
by that, sir ? 

Walter. Now that the prying old fanatic is out of the way, 
I may venture to throw off my disguise. 

Dodd. [Loudly!] What the dickens are you talking about 
now? 

Walter. Sh — sh ■! ■ Are you sure nobody listens ? 

Dodd. How do I know ? What do I care ? 

Walter. Sh— sh ! It's all right. 

Dodd. What's all right? 

Walter. Sh — sh ! I'm a friend ; I'm on your side. 

Dodd. On my side ? [Rising alarmed.] Oh ! I see' how it 
is ! He's a lunatic ! He's been reading the daily papers ! 
[To Walter, who is approaching^] Keep off, you dog! Keep 
off, or I shall do you an injury. 

Walter. They are here. The plot is ripe. In a day or 
two, all will be ours. « 

Dodd. Ours? 

Walter. I have made your plans known to our friends ; and 
I have joined the army of the tyrant, the better to serve our 
purposes. 

Dodd. My plans ? Tyrant ? Our purposes ? Will you 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 479 

have the goodness to explain all this confounded nonsense 
you are talking ? 

Walter. Well then, if you will compel me to be explicit, 
I received your letter, and our friends in the South are grate- 
ful to you for your kind suggestions. 

Dodd. [Aghast] Friends in the South ! 
Walter. To be sure; you understand; the Secesh. 

Dodd. The Secesh!. my friends! Will you, if you don't 
want to be strangled on the spot, condescend to explain what 
all this infernal mystery is about ? 

Walter. Oh yes! you carry it out very well, uncle; but it 
won't do ! 

Dodd. But I say, sir, it will do ; it must do ! 
Walter. Well, bat what's the use now f There's nobody 
here but us two ; and we both belong to the same party. 
Your sympathies are with the South ; so are mine. 

Dodd. Monster ! a vaunt ! 

Walter. Nonsense, uncle ; you should not — between friends, 
you know. Well — if I must — [shows an open letter] there, 
is this letter yours ? 

Dodd. Yes : certainly it is. 

Walter. Well then, do you mean to deny what you have 
written in it ? Listen. [Reads :] " Nephew, I have grave 
and weighty objections to the Union. Your ridiculous letter 
about Sympathy has been received. I emphatically decline 
to acknowledge the right you claim; and inform you for the 
last time, my sympathies are the other way." Did you write 
that ? 

Dodd. Certainly, I did. 

Walter. Ah ! you admit that. Your " sympathies are the 
other way," eh ? Wait a bit. [Heads :] " The conduct you 
extol is mean and pitiful, every way; and I consider the 
course you complain of perfectly justifiable." Eh ? Perfectly 
justifiable ? 

Dodd. Of course, I do. 

Walter. You admit it then ? 

Dodd. Certainly ; and I repeat it. Perfectly justifiable. 

Walter. Very well, sir ; I am glad you do. [Reads :] " You 
^ speak of yielding at length. I say, sir, never ! Your loving 
uncle, D. Doddlewobble." Grave and weighty objections* to 
the Union — sympathies the other way — perfectly justifiable 
— never yield. Do you mean to say now that you don't know 
what I mean ? 

Dodd. Certainly not, sir. It is all perfectly clear. [Loudly \\ 
I meant 



480 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Walter. Sh — sh ! speak lower. You don't know who may- 
overhear us. 

Dodd. What do I care who overhears us ? That is ray 
reply to your last letter, asking for my ward. You asked 
me to give my consent to your union ; I said I had grave 
and weighty objections to it. You wrote that I should sym- 
pathise with your feelings ; I answered, as you have just 
read, that my sympathies were the other way. You said 
that my conduct was not justifiable ; I wrote you that I con- 
sidered it perfectly justifiable. You wrote to me that I 
would eventually yield ; and I replied that I never would. 
Where is the necessity for all this mystery ? 

Walter. [Shaking his head.] Ah ! uncle ! uncle ! That's 
very ingenious ; but you'd never make it go down with a 
court-martial. The whole thing is too clear — too obvious. 
You meant to say you had objections to the union of the 
States ; you plainly imply that, in your judgment, the con- 
duct of the South is perfectly justifiable. 

Dodd. [Aghast.'] Eh? 

Walter. That your sympathies are not with the North, but 
the other way. 

Dodd. [ Overwhelmed.] Murder ! 

Walter. And that you hope they will never yield. 

Dodd. Why, you bare-faced rascal, you knoio better. 

Walter. Nonsense, uncle ! It was on the strength of that 
belief that I proposed you as Grand Master of the K. G. C, 
a chapter of which illustrious order has just been started in 
this city. 

Dodd. Me ? K. G. C. ? 

Walter. Yes, sh — sh ! You know — Knights of the Golden 
Circle ; and I rejoice to inform you that you are unanimously 
elected. 

Dodd. Me: — I — Grand Ma unanimous — Gracious Pow- 
ers ! what horrible nightmare is this ? [Sinks into a chair.] 

Walter. [Laughing aside.] Poor old fellow ! This has 
completely upset him. — Well, uncle, what do you say ? 

Dodd. What do I say ? Why, I say that it is one of the 
most unprincipled plots against a man's peace of mind that I 
ever heard of. 

Walter. Bravo ; you carry it off well. Oh ! you'll make 
a capital Grand Master ! It's all right. 

Dodd. No, sir, it's all wrong, infernally wrong, diaboli- 
cally wrong ! 

Walter. Well, I wouldn't advise you to talk that way in 
the hearing of any member of the Order ! Your life wouldn't 
be worth a minute's purchase. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 481 

Dodd. Horrible ! 

Walter. There will be a meeting here, this evening. 

Dodd. What, here, Monster ! 

Walter. Yes, here, [crosses l.,] uncle, prepare for it. Get 
all spies out of the way ; we look to you for that. 

Dodd. We ? Look to me for that ? 

Walter. Yes. I must go now. Be careful what you say ; 
you can't be too prudent, you know. If any thing should 
leak out you would be denounced to the authorities as the 
ringleader, and you would at once become the victim of popu- 
lar violence. But before I go I must give you the signs and 
passwords. A brother of the order approaching you, will 
thrust his thumb under the fourth rib, thus — and say, " This 
to the hilt /" upon which you will respond, " Yankee bones,'' 
and place the forefinger of your left hand on the left side of 
your nose, niaking a gyratory motion with the right hand 
closed— in this manner. [Suiting the action to the word.] 
It means grind, you understand. Now, farewell, noble 
Grand Master, and re — mem — ber. [Exiti] 

Dodd. Well, upon my word, this is pleasant ! Positively 
delightful! I quite enjoy it ! Ha! ha! ha! Grand Master 
of the K. G. G. ! [Starts wildly. 1 Good gracious ! it's posi- 
tively horrible ! Me — a man of quiet and irreproachable 
life ? Me — a staunch, loyal, non-committal, conservative 
merchant ? " This to the hilt !" I can feel already a bowie- 
knife under my fourth rib ! "Yankee bones !" [Makes the 
motion^ O lord ! there's tar and feathers, ropes and lamp- 
posts, in the very sound ! Can I be awake ! [Bites his 
finger. 1 O yes ! it's too true ; I'm a Grand Master, and 
there's a meeting here to-night, and I'm ruined forever ! 
But I know what I'll do. I'll run away. I'll go to Canada. 
There's time yet. [Going towards the door, r., is met by 
Gcesar, who has been peeping during the last conversation, 
and now enters, with breakfast on a tray.~\ 

Caesar. [Smging.1 " John Brown's bones hang a danglin' 
in the air, — John Brown's bones hang a danglin' in de air, — 
John Brown's bones hang a danglin' in de air, in de yearob 
Jubilo !" Dare's de breakfast, sah. 

Dodd. How dare you come into my parlor, singing in that 
manner ? 

Goesar. Kase niggers is de war ! [Sings.] John Brown's 
bones— 

Dodd. Get out, you black rascal ! 

Gmsa?\ Well don't tear your trowsis ! 

Dodd. [Advancing threateningly^ Will you leave the 
room, sir, or shall I have you put out, neck and heels? 

21 



482 THE PATEIOTIO SPEAKER. 

Ccesar. Oh ! dat is to say, dat you has de condescension 
to spres de opinion dat you prefers dat yer nigger would 
leave dis yer department. 

Dodd. Yes, you insolent menial ! that's just what I mean. 

Ccesar. What ! go out o' dat door ? 

Dodd. Yes, any door. 

Ccesar. And turn to de left ? 

Dodd. I don't care which way you turn? 

Ccesar. And down dem stairs ? 

Dodd. Yes, sir ; down dem stairs. 

Ccesar. And turn to de right ? 

Dodd. I shall burst with rage ! 

Ccesar. And down tudder stairs ? 

Dodd. Get out ! get out ! 

Ccesar. And into de kitchen? 

Dodd. Yes ! yes ! you exasperating subordinate ! or into 
the black hole, for aught I care ! 

Ccesar. Well, I is'nt a gwine. 

Dodd. Insignificant, but contumacious reptile ! I've borne 
your insolence long enough. Pack up your limited supply 
of wearing apparel, and leave the mansion of Doddlewobble, 
forthwith ! I refuse to harbor you ! Depart ! ere I annihi- 
late you with the explosion of my suppressed indignation. 

Ccesar. Well, dat's pretty talk for a gentleman, dat is ; 
swearin' in dat awful way. But what else kin you expect 
from an old secesh ? 

Dodd. [Alarmed^] Old secesh? What can he mean by 
that ? 

Ccesar. Oh ! I know you kin be sassy^ Massa Doddlewob- 
ble ; but I doesn't exactly see what it is that makes you feel 
so grands Massa Doddlewobble. [Significantly.] 

Dodd. [Aside.'] Grand Master Doddlewobble ! Bless 
my soul ! Can he have heard ? 

Ccesar. Tell you what 'tis — dis nigger knows some things 
from de pint to de hilt. [Thrusting his thumb into his rihs.~\ 
I didn't learn to play on de bones for nufim. I knows a hoe- 
cake from a coffee-mill, you kin bet. [Making the motion.] 
Yah ! yah ! yah ! 

Dodd. [Aside.] I am undone forever! [Aloud.] Ah, 
then, my good Csesar, you know all. You have heard this 
vile conspiracy to ruin an innocent man. 

Ccesar. Don't see it in dat light, no how, Massa Doddle- 
wobble. I always knew you was mean and sassy, but I never 
'spected you was such a hard old cuss as 'pears you is. But 
now you's found out, I'se bound as a first class crisis and con- 
traband, to put you froo. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 483 

Dodd. Put me through ! Good heavens ! what do you 
mean? 

Ccesar. 'Port you to de Fort Lafayette, o' course ! what a 
ignorant old ramus you is ! Golly ! guess dey won't be much 
laughy-yet in you when you cool yer old nose on dem iron 
bars! Yah! yah!- 

Dodd. Cold-blooded man of ebony ! Would you betray 
and ruin me? See, here is gold. [Producing a bill.'] 

Ccesar. ISTot much gold, dat ain't ! One dollar on de Duck 
River Bank. Well, we isn't takin' dat sort's much as we was. 
We goes in for de green kind. 

Dodd. Mercenary but mighty Caesar, permit me, then, 
to substitute one of the green variety. [Fumbles for an- 
other^ 

Ccesar. [Approaching him, and rolling his eyes.] Why, 
you disgustin' ole fly-blown secheser ! do you link"' you kin 
bribe dis yer cullud pussun to forgit his duty to de country, 
and kiver his family scutchum all ober wid eberkstin' disgrace? 
No, siree ! I won't take a cent less dan five dollars on de 
Bank of Massa Chase. 

Dodd, Serpent on my hearth-stone ! 

Ccesar. Hi! hi! swearin' agin! Ef you break out dat 



Dodd. Vindictive and fearfully exorbitant tormentor! 
enough! Behold the stipulated sum. [Gives money.] Oh 
that an innocent man and an average patriot should be thus 
exposed to the exactions of a corrupt and heartless domestic ! 
Will that satisfy you ? 

Ccesar. Well — yes ; I guess dat will do, fur de present. 
But I shall keep an eye onto you, Massa Doddlewobble, and 
see how you behaves. [Going, returns.'] And I must give 
you warning Massa Doddlewobble, dat I isn't a gwine to no 
corner-grocery for no lager no more ; and you must 'pint 
anoclder gentleman to 'tend to de boots. [Fxit, singing, 
" John Brown's bones," &c. 

Dodd. Well, I'm sure I ought to be thankful that he didn't 
bind me to bring his beer and black his boots. Wretched 
man that I am, what will become of me ? The whole world 
is leagued against me. What shall I do ? I'll fly ! Yes, 
there is still a chance ! [Goes toward l.] 

Enter Fudgit (l.) mysteriously. 

Fudg. Sh— sh! 

Dodd. Hallo ! who can this be ? 

Fudg. Sh— sh! 

Dodd. It's confoundedly annoying that a man should be 



484 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

perpetually shooed at, in this manner, in his own house. 
Well, sir, what's your business ?'' 

Fudg. [Looking cautiously around^] Sh — sh! It's all 
right. You're Doddle wobble. 

Dodd. Well, what of it? 

Fudg. I'm here ! 

Dodd. Incomprehensible mortal, do you think I'm blind ? 
I see you're here. The fact that you are here is exceedingly 
gratifying, or no doubt ought to be ; though really I can't 
quite see it. And now, sir, you have given me two remark- 
able pieces of information, first, that I'm Doddwobble, and 
second, that you are here. And I assure you the third will 
be that Doddwobble has pitched you out of that window, 
unless you speedily inform me why you are here. 

Fudg. Sh— sh ! You know ! 

Dodd. Do I. 

Fudg. I'mFudgit! 

Dodd. Are you ? 

Fudg. Sworn to secresy ! 

Dodd. Qh ! I'm glad of that. What secresy ? 

Fudg. It!— it! 

Dodd. It !— it ! What the old Harry is it f 

Fudg. Hush! some one comes! conceal me! By our sa- 
cred'bond of brotherhood I command you! [Grosses e,] 

Dodd. Brotherhood ! It ! This must be a lunatic of the 
first water ! What do you mean ? 

Fudg. Hah ! the sign ! the watchword ! [Pokes his thumb 
into D.'s ribs.] This to the hilt ! [Looks expectingly at D.] 

Dodd. Eh ? What ? Why, it can't be ! Yes ! 

Fudg. Hah ! no response ! Am I betrayed ? [Drawing 
a huge butcher-knifed] This, then, to thy heart ! 

Dodd. Oh ! good gracious ! I forgot ! " Y — yankee bones.'' 
[Makes the motion^] 

Fudg. Noble Grand Master ! Ah ! they are here. [Exit 
hastily l. c] 

Dodd. Grand Master ! It ! I see it all. It is one of the 
bloodthirsty members of that bloodthirsty order of which I 
am the unconscious and innocent presiding officer. I am lost ! 
[Sinks into a chair, overiohelmed.] If he is found here and 
his purpose is known — I don't know whether I have most to 
fear from the vengeance of the government or the wrath of 
the populace. I'll not wait to pack up. I'll be off at once. 
[Going, e.] 

Enter JB limber, 2 e. e. 

Blimber. Sh — sh! 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 485 

Dodcl Another husher ! Good gracious ! It seems as if 
my house was full of adders. 

Blimber. [Ifystei'iously.] You don't know me. 

Dodd. Mysterious being ! You are right ; I do not. 

Blimber. 'it's all right. 

Dodd. Oh! \tis? 

Blimber. I'm a detective. 

Dodd. O Lordy! [Tumbles faintly against him. ~\ 

Blimber. Why, what's the matter ? 

Dodd. Nothing. He isn't here ; I assure you he isn't. 

Blimber. He? Who? Ah! 

Dodd. Nobody. I nearly let it out. [Aside.] 

Blimber. Oh ! Well, then, you must know that I have re- 
ceived information Ah ! somebody comes ! Don't be- 
tray me, as you value your safety. [Exit, r. c] 

Dodd. No, I won't. [ Groans despairingly '.] Isn't this a 
beautiful situation for a quiet, conservative man ? Talk about 
a man's house being his castle — rubbish ! it's his prison. 
Look at me ! Here have I got a bloodthirsty Southerner in 
one room, and a detective officer, equally unwelcome, in the 
other. If I betray the Southerner I shall become the victim 
of the assassin ; if I don't, and he is found concealed here, I 
shall be arrested as an accomplice. I am lost, unless one 
more effort to escape [Going r , l.] 

Enter Rackett, l. 

Bach. Sh— sh! . 

Dodd. [ Wildly.] Oh ! it's of no use. I resign myself to 
my fate. Yes, I know you. Sh — sh ! It's all right ! I'm 
here! Don't mind me! Grand Master! It! All right! 
Some one is coming ! Yankee bones to the hilt ! [Punch- 
ing Backett, then making the mill-motion fantastically^] 
Ha! ha! ha! 

Back. Hold ! sh — sh ! Silence, for your life ! [Seizing 
D's arm and taking him to extreme r.] Are we alone ? 

Dodd. [Baicling.'] Y— e — s ! Confound it ! can't you see 
we are ? 

Blimber. [Putting his head out of the door, r.] Sh — sh ! 

[Mat. 

Back. What's that ? 

Dodd. There's the detective ! I'm lost ! Doddlewobble ! 
prepare yourself for tar. 

Back. [Hurrying him to extreme l.] We are brothers. 

Fudgit. [From door, l.] Sh — sh ! [Exit. 

Back. Again, that sound! 

Dodd. Oh, it's nothing ! Nothing but the cockroaches 



486 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

coughing ! [Aside.] It's the bloodthirsty rascal ; what shall 
I do ? I can feel the feathers cropping out all over me ? 

Mack. [ Crosses p.] Sh — sh ! Take this and prepare. 
[Places a large bowie knife in JD^s hand.] This evening, all 
will be settled. You have been chosen as the boldest of our 
band. Behold a list of the proscribed! [Gives a paper.] 

Dodd. [Takes it nervously and reads.] Mayor Wood — A. 
A. Low — S. B. Chittenden — M. F. Odell ! Gracious heavens ! 
these are our very first citizens ! 

Hack. [Solemnly.] Ere yonder sun shall rise once more, 
those " very first citizens" must welter in their gore ! Strike 
home ! Strike deep ! sh — sh ! we must be cautious. [Going 
to door, r. c] 

Dodd. [Running after him.] No, no ; not there ! Here ! 
[ Takes him by the collar and thrusts him into door, l. c, 
with Fudgit ; kicking him as he goes.] Now, what is to 
prevent my committing a justifiable homicide on the persons 
of these miscreants ? I am growing desperate. This has got 
to end somewhere ; it can't go on forever ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
It's rather funny: capital joke. It's gratifying to have one's 
life in perpetual danger. I rather like it. I didn't know that 
cold perspiration running down the middle of your back was 
so delightful a sensation. Ha! ha! A sanguinary Grand 
Master of a sanguinary K. G. C, with the most sanguinary 
of bowie knives in his red right hand ! [Faintly.] Oh ! I 
can't stand it much longer ; I feel I can't. War-correspon- 
dence is a fool to this ! I'd rather be the Secretary of the 
Navy, with all the newspapers in the country pitching into 
me. Oh ! Oh ! [Putting his hand to his head.] 

Enter Caesar, r. 

Gwsar. Oh Massa Hobblegobble ! sh — sh ! 

Dodd. You villain, if you make that sound again I'll mur- 
der you. [ Catching him by the collar and shaking him.] 

Cwsar. Oh Massa ! dey's come ! dey's come ! 

Dodd. Oh ! they are ! Well, send 'em away again. 

Cmsar. Oh, but dey won't go, sah ; and dey's armed up to 
de berry roots ob dey har. 

Dodd. Armed? 

Cmsar. Yes, sah, dey's got bowie knives down de back o' 
dey necks, and blunderbusses in dey shirt bosoms. 

Fnter Dingbatter, l. 

Ding. Oh Doddle wobble, Doddle wobble ! this is a sad af- 
fair. I never supposed you would carry your reprehensible 
principles to such an extent ! Fly, fly for your life ! The 



J DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 487 

police have received intelligence of your connection with the 
rebels, and the whole city is in a state of excitement at the 
discovery. 

Enter Walter, l. 

Walter. They are all here, uncle ! 

Dodd. [Catching him by the throat.'] Monster! I'll 
squeeze the life out of you ! Get me out of this infernal 
scrape you've got me into, or I'll assassinate you on the 
spot ! 

Walter. But, sir, consider — 

Dodd. I swear I wonH consider. You get — me — out or 
your life ! 

Walter. This to the hilt, then ! [Punching him with his 
thwnb.] 

Dodd. [Staggering back.'] Merciful powers ! I'm a mur- 
dered man ! 

Walter. ISTot a bit of ij, uunkey ; only a little shock to 
"Yankee bones." [Laughing.'] But seriously, if there's 
been a misunderstanding here, I'm willing to expose myself 
in order to rescue you. But it will be at no little peril to my 
safety, I assure you, and I must be permitted to encumber 
my consent with certain conditions. 

Dodd. N"ame your price at once, sir. 

Walter. Well, then, the hand of Clara. 

Dodd. [Furiously.] You be — 

[Sere Blimber, Fudgit, &c, <£c, and all the characters 
interrupt with " sh — -sh/" ivhich is echoed from all quarters 
behind the scenes^] Good gracious ! Yes ! I consent to 
anything. 

Dingbatter. [ Comes forward with a paper.] Sign that. 

Dodd. sits down hurriedly, and signs without reading. 

Walter. [Going to door, r.] Come along, Blimber! It's 
all right, I don't want you any more. 

Blimber. [ Coming out and going, r.] All right, I'll see 
you at the camp. 

Dodd. I'll be hanged if he hasn't suborned the detective ! 
Can such things be ? 

Blimber. Sh — sh ! [Ifysteriously to Dodd.] 

Dodd. Get out ! [Betreating.] 

Walter. I'll see you again, old fellow. Go now. 

Fxit B., r. 

Dodd. Well, sir, what next ? 
Walter. [Going to door, l. c] Come along, boys ! Follow 



488 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. , 

Blimber, and meet me at the camp. It's all right ! The prize 
is won. [Miter Fudgit and Racket. 

Dodd. What's all this ? Have I been deceived ? 

Fadg. and Rack. [Mysteriously.'] All right ! Sh — sh ! 

Dodd. [Starting back.] Ah ! you miscreants ! Get out ! 
[Mceunt.] Who, then, are the wretches, you young vaga- 
bond ? [To Walter.] 

■ Walter. Oh ! they are some very good fellows of ours, 
uncle, who have volunteered to assist me in winning by a 
little stratagem, what you so obdurately refused me, the 
dearest object of my life. In a few days, I must depart with 
my regiment, to serve my country amidst scenes of blood and 
peril, and the dearest wish of my heart was to marry Clara 
before my departure. Trust me, I will not prove unworthy 
of her, or of you ; and, if I should be so fortunate as to re- 
turn, you shall not find me ungrateful for all your kindness. 
May I not hope, after all that has passed, that you will give 
me Clara, with your blessing ? 

Dodd. [In a rage.] Take her^and be 

Ding. [ Clasps his hand over D.'s mouth, and all say : 
" Sh-sh !"] 

Dodd. [Disengaging his mouth.] blessed ! 

Enter Caesar, r. 

Cwsar. Hooray ! Here's de extry Herald ! 

Dodd. Ah ! give it to me ; I turn with pleasure to my 
much-abused war-correspondent ! I've learned to-day that 
there is something worse than the newspaper. Let's see — 
let's see ! [ Opening the paper.] What's this ? [Reads.] " One, 
P. M. We are informed on the best authority, that the Gov- 
ernment has received positive evidence of the death of Jeff. 
Davis." Well, come ! That's good, at least ! I'm glad that 
somebody's dead; it soothes my exasperated nerves amaz- 
ingly. [Reads again.] Hallo ! hallo ! what's this ? " Two 
o'clock, P. M. Jeff. Davis alive and well, at the last accounts." 
[Drops the paper, and clutches his hair with both hands.] 
The demon again ! Carry me out, and bury me decently ! 
[Sinks into a chair.] 

Curtain falls. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 489 

DAMON AND PYTHIAS. 

Adapted from the play of that name by John Banim. 

Characters: — Dionysitts, Damocles, Procles, Philistius, Damon, 
Pythias, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, &c. 

Scene I.— A street in Syracuse. 

Diontsius and Procles discovered, as expecting tidings. 

Dion., l. Ere this, the senate should have closed its coun- 
cils, 
And chosen the new year's president. I pant 
To know their meeting's issue. 

Proc, r. Good, my lord, 
There's but light doubt, a great majority 
Of easy-purchased voices will be found 
For your fast friend, Philistius. 

Dion. On his choice 
'Hangs the long chain of complicated purpose 
Has ta'en such time in linking. Plague upon 
The law, that from the senate-house excludes 
All soldiers, like ourselves, or we should soon 
Outvote all difficulty ! [Senators cross the stage from r. to 

l.] Ha ! methinks 
The assembly hath dissolved. 
By Jupiter, 

Philistius' self doth hasten to us here, 
And with him Damocles ! How now, my friend ? 

Enter Philistius and Damocles, r. 

Art thou the president ? 

Phil., l. I am, my lord. 
Chosen by a large majority to take 
The honorable office in the which 
I may, at least, requite the benefits 
Which you have heaped upon me. 

Dam. Yes, my lord, 
"We have at last attained the 'vantage ground, 
Whence your broad view may take a boundless prospect. 

Dion. 'Tis a bold step upon the mountain-path, 
Wherein I have been toiling. I no longer 
Doubt of the senate's inclination. 



490 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKEE. 

[To Socles.] What say the soldiers? Thou hast hinted to 

them 
That we confided to thee ? 

Proc, e. Yes, my lord ; 
And they are ready for it. 

Dion. Go thou hence, [ Crosses to Procles. 

And speak to them again ; disperse more gold ; 
'Twill give a relish to thine eloquence. [Exit Peocles. 

Philistius, give me your hand. I thank you. 
Things look in smiles upon me. It was otherwise 
But a year since, when I impeached the magistrates 
For treasonable dealing with the foe. 
And the senate hurled me from my topmost height 
Of popularity. 

Dam. Degraded you 
From power and office ! 

Dion. Ay ! at the appeal 
Of that state pedant, the Pythagorean, 
Who hangs out his austerity for sale, 
In frowns, closed lips, and pithy sentences. 

Dam. Thou speakest of Damon ? 

Dion. Ay ! mine enemy, 
The patriot and philosophic knave, 
Who hath been busy with my purposes, 
And one day shall not smile at it. He came 
Into the senate-house, with a fierce crew 
Of his associates in philosophy, 
Silent and frowning, at his back; he railed, 
And had his triumph. — Times have altered since ! [Shouts, B, 

Phil My lords, 
The soldiers shout for you. 

Dion. Procles, I see, 
Is at his work. — Good Damocles, Philistius, 
As you are senators, retire you hence : 
It were not meet that you should look to have been 
Parties to any act, which afterwards 
May grow into discussion. — And, Philistius, 
One effort more among our city friends : 
I will forewarn ih.ee of the time to call 
The senators together. — Yet, I mean not 
Exclusively to trust them, good Philistius ; — 
Sure means, sure ends. — I'll have a friend or two 
Within my call, to help them. — If their councils 
Become too knotty for unravelling, 
A sharp sword may be useful. — Fare you well. 

[Exeunt ; Dionysius l., Philistius and Damocles, e.] 



DIALOGUES, OEIGINAL AND SELECTED. 491 



Sce'ne IT. — The Senate-House of Syracuse. 

Senators assembled — Philistitjs at their head. — Dion- 
ysius stands e, in the front of the stage. — Damocles 
is seated^ e. 

Dam. So soon warned back again ! 

Dion. So soon, good fathers. 
My last despatches here set forth, that scarce 
I had amassed and formed our gallant legions, 
When, as by magic, word of the precaution 
Was spirited to their camp — and on the word, 
These Carthaginians took their second thought, 
And so fell back. 

Phil. I do submit to you, 
That out of this so happy consequence 
Of Dionysius' movement on the citadel, 
Not only is his pardon for the act 
Freely drawn forth, but we are called upon 
Our thanks most manifestly to express 
For such a noble service. 

Dion. Good Philistius, 
I am a soldier ; yours and the state's servant ; 
And claim no notice for my duty done 
Beyond the doing it — and the best thanks 
I merit or can have, lie in the issue 
Which has most happily resulted. 

Dam. [Pises.~] Nay, 
It rests in us to say so. 

Phil. Dionysius, 
The work which of this enterprise thou hast made, 

[Damocles sits. 
Proves that our citadel and its resources 
Have been misused ; and never so controlled 
And ordered for our good, as by thyself; 
Therefore retain it, govern and direct it. — 
Would the whole state were like the citadel ! 
In hot and angry times like these, we want 
Even such a man. 

Dam. [Pises.] I, from my heart, assent to 
And second this proposal. 

Dion. Most reverend fathers — 

Dam. We pray thee, silence,, noble Dionysius ! 
All here do kuow what your great modesty 
Will urge you to submit ; but I will raise 
This envious veil wherein you shroud yourself. 



492 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

It is the time to speak ; our country's danger 
Calls loudly for some measure at our hands, 
Prompt and decisive. 

Damon. [Without, l.] Thou most lowly minion! 
I'll have thee whipped for it, and by the head 
Made less even than thou art ! [Senators rise* 

Enter Damon, l. 

Phil. Who breaks so rude and clamorously in 
To scare our grave deliberations ? 

Damon. A senator ! — First let me ask you why, 
Upon my way here to sit down with you, 
I have encountered in the open streets, 
Nay, at the very threshold of your doors, 
Soldiers and satellites arrayed and marshalled 
With their swords out ? Why have I been obstructed 
By an armed bandit in my peaceful walk here, 
To take my rightful seat in the senate-house ? 
Why has a ruffian soldier privilege 
To hold his weapon to my throat ? A tainted, 
Disgraced, and abject traitor, Procles ! Who 
Dared place the soldiers round the senate-house ? 

Phil. I pray you, fathers, let not this rash man 
Disturb the grave and full consideration 
Of the important matter, touching which 
We spoke ere he rushed in. [Senators sit. 

Dam. [To the senators.'] I did require 
To know from you, without a hand or head, 
Such as to us hath been our Dionysius, 
What now were our most likely fate ? 

Damon. The fate 
Of freemen ; in the full free exercise 
Of all the noble rights that freemen love ! 
Free in our streets to walk; free in our councils 
To speak and act — 

Phil. I do entreat you, senators, 
Protect me from this scolding demagogue ! 

Damon. Demagogue, Philistius ! 
Who was. the demagogue, when at my challenge 
He was denounced and silenced by the senate, 
And your scant oratory spent itself 
In fume and vapour ? 

Dam. Silence, Damon, silence ! 
And let the council use its privilege. 

Damon. Who bids me silence ? Damocles, the soft 
And pliant willow, Damocles ! But come, 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 493 

What do you dare propose ? Come, I'll be silent- 
Go on. [Sits. 

Phil. Resolve you, then, is Dionysius 
This head indeed to us ? Acting for us — 
Yea, governing, that long have proved we cannot, 
Although we feign it, govern for ourselves ! 

Dam. Then who so fit, in such extremity, 
To be the single pillar, on whose strength 
All power should rest ? 

Phil. Ay, and what needs the state 
Our crowded and contentious councils here ? 
And therefore, senators — countrymen, rather, 
That we may be wiser and better ruled 
Than by ourselves we are ; that the state's danger 
May be confronted boldly, and that he 
May have but his just meed, I do submit 
That forthwith we dissolve ourselves, and choose 
A king in Dionysius. 

Damon. [Grosses to senators.] King! A King? 

1st Sen. I do approve it. 

2d Sen. Ay, and I. [All the senators on r. rise. 

Dam. And all ! All are content ! ' 

Damon. And all ! are all content ? 
A nation's right betrayed, 

And all content ! [-Senators sit.] Oh, slaves ! oh, parricides ! 
Oh, by the brightest hope a just man has, 
I blush to look around and call you men ! 
What ! with your own free willing hands yield up 
The ancient fabric of your constitution, 
To be a garrison, a common barrack, 
And common guard-house, and for common cut-throats ! 
What, will ye all combine to tie a stone 
Each to each other's neck, and drown like dogs 
Within the tide of time, arid never float 
To after ages, or at best, but float 
A buoyant pestilence ? Can ye but dig 
Your own dark graves, creep into them, and die ? 

3d Sen. I have not sanctioned it. ) 

4th Sen. Nor I. J- [Senators l. rise. 

5th Sen. Nor I. ) 

Damon. Oh ! thanks for these few voices ! but, alas ! 
How lonely do they sound ! [Senators sit.] Do you not all 
Start up at once, and cry out liberty ? 
Are you so bound in fetters of the mind, 
That there you sit, as if you were yourselves 
Incorporate with the marble ? Syracusans ! — 



494 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

But no ! I will not rail, nor chide, nor curse ye ! 

I will implore you, fellow-countrymen, 

With blinded eyes, and weak and broken speech, 

I will implore you — Oh ! I am weak in words, 

But I could bring such advocates before you ! 

Your fathers' sacred images ; old men, 

That have been grandsires ; women with their children, 

Caught up in fear and hurry, in their arms — 

And those old men should lift their shivering voices 

And palsied hands — and those affrighted mothers 

Should hold their innocent infants forth, and ask, 

Could you make slaves of them ? 

Phil. I dissolve the senate 
At its own vote and instance. [Leaves his seat — all the sen- 
ators, r., that have voted, rise. 

Dam. And all hail.! 
Hail, Dionysius, King of Syracuse ! 

Dion. Is this the vote ? 

Damon. There is no vote ! Philistius, 
Hold you your seat : keep in your places, senators. 

Dion. I ask, is this the vote ? 

Phil. It is the vote, 
My gracious liege and sovereign- ! 

Damon. I say, nay ? 
You have not voted, Naxillus, nor Petus — 
Nor you, nor you, nor you — 

Phil. In my capacity 
As head and organ of the city council, 
I do asseverate it is the vote ! 
All hail, then, Dionysius ! 

[They all kneel to Dionysius except Damon and the sen- 
ators who have voted in the negative. 

Dion. I thank you, friends and countrymen, I thank ye! 
[ Goes tip to the chair which Philistius has left. 

Damon. Oh ! all the gods, my country, oh, my country! 

Dion, (c.) And that we may have leisure to put on 
With fitting dignity our garb of power, 
We do now, first assuming our own right, 
Command from this, that was the senate-house, 
Those rash, tumultuous men, who still would tempt 
The city's peace with wild vociferation, 

And vain contentious rivalry. [Comes down opposite Da~ 
mon, r. c.,] Away ! 

Damon. I stand, 
A senator, within the senate-house. 

Dion. Traitor ! and dost thou dare me to my face ? 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 495 

Damon. Traitor ! to whom ? to thee ! — Oh ! Syracuse, 
Is this thy registered doom ? To have no meaning 
For the proud names of liberty and virtue 
But as some regal braggart sets it down 
In his vocabulary ? And the sense, 
The broad, bright sense that Nature hath assigned them. 
In her infallible volume, interdicted 
Forever from thy knowledge ; or if seen, 
And known, and put in use, denounced as treasonable, 
And treated thus ? — No, Dionysius, no ! 
I am no traitor ! But in mine allegiance 
To my lost country, I proclaim thee one ! 

Dion. My guards, there ! Ho ! [ Crosses to e. corner. 

Damon. What ! hast thou, then, invoked 
Thy satellites already ? 

Miter Peocles and Soldiees, l. 

Dion. Seize him ! 

Damon. [Hushes on Dionysius and attempts to stab him.'] 
First, 
Receive a freeman's legacy ! \IIe is intercepted by guards 

and JPr odes.] Dionysius, 
Thy genius is triumphant, and old Syracuse 
Bows her to the dust at last ! — 'Tis done ; 'tis o'er, 
And we are slaves forever ! [ Crosses, L. 

Dion. We reserve 
This proud assassinating demagogue, 
Who whets his dagger on philosophy, 
For — an example to his cut-throat school I— « 
The axe, and not the sword. Out of his blood 
We'll mix a cement to our monarchy : 
Here do we doom him to a public death ! 

Damon. Death's the best gift to one that never yet 
Wished to survive his country. Here are men 
Fit for the life a tyrant can bestow ! 
Let such as these live on. 

Dion. Hold thou there ! 
Lest, having stirred our vengeance into wrath, 
It reach unto those dearer than thyself — 
Thy wife and child. 

Ha ! have I touched thee, Damon ? Is there a way 
To level thee unto the feebleness 
Of universal nature ? What, no word ? 
Come, use thy time, my brave philosopher ! 
Thou hast few moments left ! 

Damon. I know thee well — 



496 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Thou art wont to use thy tortures on the heart, 

Watching* its agonizing throbs, and making 

A science of that fell anatomy ! 

These are thy bloody metaphysics — this 

Thy barbarous philosophy ! I own 

Thou hast struck thy venomed sting into my soul, 

But while I'm wounded, I despise thee still ! 

My wife ! my child ! Oh, Dionysius, 

Thou should'st have spared me that ! — Prbcles, lead on. 

[Procles precedes Damon, who goes out, l. — the guards 
follow. — Dionysius goes up to chair, c. — the senators 
surround him — and distant shouts heard, as the scene 
closes. 

[Note. — At this point is a natural division. Each of the parts of the 
dialogue can be used separately, or both together. — R. R. R.] 

Scene III. — A Street. 

Enter four guards, l. s. e., then Procles with Damon in 
chains, followed by four more guards. 

Damon. A moment's pause here, Procles. 

[Procles motions the guards to halt. 
We discoursed together 

Of an old friend of mine, who in all likelihood 
Would question thee concerning my last thoughts, 
While leaving this vain world ; I do entreat thee, 
When thou shalt see that man, commend me to him, 
And say, a certainty of how true a friend 
And father he will be unto my wife 
And child — 

Pyth. [ Without, l.] Hold back ! it is impossible 
That ye can butcher him, till we speak together ! 

Enter Pythias, preceded by soldiers, who obstruct his 
way, l. 

I am his nearest friend ! I should receive 

His dying words — hold back ! [Breaks through them. 

Oh, Damon ! Damon ! 

Damon, (c.) I wished for this, but feared it, Pythias ! 
Tush ! — we are men, my Pythias ; we are men, 
And tears do not become us. 

Pyth. Doom and death 
In the game moment ! Is there no hope, Damon ? 
Is everything impossible ? 

Damon. For me, 



DIALOGUES, OEIGINAL AND SELECTED. 497 

With Dionysius, everything — I craved 

But six hours' respite, that my wife may come, 

And see me — 

Pyth. And he would not ? 
Damon. Not an hour — 
Yet to have kissed her, and my little boy — 
Just to have kissed her — 

Pyth. The cold villain! 

Damon. Well, 
All that is o'er now, and this talk superfluous. • 
Ere you came up, my friend, I was about 
To leave a greeting for you with the officer :' 
I bade him say, too — for, despite of rules 
Well conned and understood, in such a time 
As this — so sudden, hopeless, and unlooked for, — 
The eye will water, and the heart grow cowardly, 
At thoughts of home, and things we love at home ; 
And something like a sorrow, or a fear. 
For what may happen them, will stick in the throat, 
To choke our words, and make them weak and womanish 

Pyth. Tears have a quality of manhood in them, 
When shed for what we love. 

Damon. I bade him say, 
That half my fear for her, and my young boy, 
As to their future fate, was banished, 
In the full certainty I felt of all 
The care and kindness thou' wilt have of them. 

Pyth. That was a true thought, Damon. 

Damon. Pythias, I know it. 
And when the shock of this hath passed away, 
And thou art happy with thy sweet Calanthe — 

Pyth. Damon ! 

Damon. Well, Pythias ? 

Pyth. Did'st thou not say 
It was thy last desire to look upon 
Thy wife and child, before — 

Damon. I would give up,— 
Were my life meted out by destiny 
Into a thousand years of happiness, — 
All that long measure of felicity, 
But for a single moment, in the which 
I might compress them to my heart. 

Pyth. Good Procles, [ Crosses, e. 

Lead me at once to Dionysius — 
I mean, unto the king — that's his new name — 
Lead me unto the king— {Trumpet, e.] Ha ! here he comes! 



498 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Enter Dionysius and Damocles, r. 

Behold me, Dionysius, at thy feet ! [Kneels. 

As thou dost love thy wife, and thy sweet children ; 

As thou'rt a husband and a father, hear me ! 

Let Damon go and see his wife and child 

Before he dies — for four hours respite him — 

Put me in chains : plunge me into his dungeon, 

As pledge for his return ; do this — but this — 

And may the gods themselves build up thy greatness 

As high as their own heaven. [Rises. 

Dion. What wonder's this ? 
Is he thy brother ? 

Pyth. No, not quite my brother ! 
Not — yes, he is — he is my brother ! 

Dion. Damon — is this a quibble of thy school ? , 

Damon. No quibble, for he is not so in kin, 
Not in the fashion that the word puts on, 
But brother in the heart ! 

Dion. [To Damon.'] Did'st urge him on 
To this ? 

Pyth. By the gods, no ! 

Dion. And should I grant • [ Grosses, c. 

Thy friend's request, leaving thee free to go, 
Unwatched, unguarded, thou mak'st naught of it, 
Quite sure that thou wilt Come and ransom him, 
At the imminent time? 

Damon. Sure of it ? Hearest thou Heaven ? 
The emptiest things reverberate most sound, 
And hollow hearts have words of boisterous promise. 
I can say only — I am sure ! 

Dion. 'Tis granted. 

[Two officers take the chains off Damon, and place them 
on Pythias. 
How far abides thy wife from here ? 

Damon. Four leagues. 

Dion. For six hours we defer thy death. 'Tis now 
The noon exactly ; and at the sixth hour 
See that thou stand'st not far from him ; away ! 
Conduct that man to prison. 

Damon. Farewell, Pythias ! 

Pyth. And farewell, Damon ! Not a word upon it ! 
Speed thee. What, tears ? — Forbear. 

Damon. I did not think 
To shed one tear; but friendship like to thine — 

Pyth. Farewell ! Come officer. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 499 

Damon. I pray thee, Procles ! — 
Pythias, thy hand again : Pythias, farewell ! 

[Exeunt Pythias, Procles and guards, e. Dionysius 
and Damocles retire to the back of the stage: Enter 

LuCULLUS. 

Luc. Oh, my dear lord, my master and my friend, 
The sight of you thus safe — 

Damon. Safe ! 

Jjiic. For at least 
A respite, my kind lord 

Damon, No more, Lucullus. 
Bring to your porch my horse ; the gallant grey 
I lately bought of Anaxagoras. 

[Exeunt Lucullus and Damon in different directions. 
Dionysius and Damocles come forward. 

Dion. Oh, by the wide world, Damocles, 
I did not think the heart of man was moulded 
To such a purpose. 

Damon. It is wondrous. 

Dion. Wondrous ! , 

Sir, it doth win from the old imaginers 
Their wit and novelty ! — 
I'll visit Pythias in his dungeon : get me 
A deep disguise. We'll use such artifice 
As the time, and our own counsel, may suggest. — 
If they should triumph, crowns are nothingness — 
Glory is soun d — and grandeur, poverty ! [Exeunt^ b. 

Scene IV.— A portal on one side ; on the other side, the 
dungeo?i-door of Pythias, barred and chained. 

Enter Dionysius, disguised in a cloak, e. s. e., preceded 
by Peocles, who points to the dungeon. . 

Dion. Is this the dungeon ? — Unbar the door.— 

[Procles undraws the bolts and lets fall the chains. 
I'll probe him deeply. — 
Now observe well the orders that I gave thee ! [Motio?is him 

away and opens the door. Exit Procles, l. s. e. 
My lord Pythias ! 

Pyth. [ Within.'] How now ! who calls me ? 
Dion. A friend, Pythias : — the time is precious ; haste, 
And follow me. 

Enter Pythias, from dungeon, l. u. e. 
Pyth. [l.] Where do you lead me ? 
Dion, [e.] I come 
To serve and succour thee. 



500 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Pyth. And who art thou ? 
And how canst succour me? 

Dion. I dwell beneath 
The tyrant's roof, and learned by accident 
This fell determination — he hath resolved — 

Pyth. My life!— 

Dion. Thy life ! 
Ere this, he hath despatched some twenty men 
To intercept thy friend, on his approach 
To meet and ransom thee. 

Pyth. Almighty Heaven ! 

Dion. He not arriving at the appointed hour, 
Thy life is forfeited. 

Pyth. We try the depth together ; I had hoped 
That one or other of us could have lived ' 
For his poor Hermion's, or Calanthe's sake — 
No matter. 

Dion. Pythias, I came to save thee. 

Pyth. What dost thou mean ? 

Dion. Urged by my pity for such noble friends, 
So trusting and betrayed — anxious, besides, 
To leave the tyrant's court, 
Hither I bribed my way. — Thy fair Calanthe 
Shall be the partner of thy flight. — Thy father — 

Pyth. Sir!— 

Dion. Yes, thy father, too — thy time-struck father, 
Who, till this day, for many circling years 
Hath not held human intercourse, 
Was visited by me — he hath upraised him 
From his lonely bed. 

Pyth. Thou speak'st of miracles ! 

Dion. And ere I came, with all despatch and seeresy 
I have provided in the port of Syracuse 
A good quick-sailing ship — yonder she lies, 
Her sails already spread before the breeze, 
And thou and thy Calanthe — 

Pyth. Oh, Calanthe ! 
If mothers love the babe upon the breast, 
When it looks up with laughter in its eyes, 
Making them' weep for joy — if they can love, 
I loved, and do love thee, my own Calanthe : — 
But wert thou magnified above thyself 
As much in fascination as thou art 
Above all creatures else — by all the gods, 
In awful reverence sworn, I would not cheat 
My honor! 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 501 

Dion. Madman, what dost thou intend ? 

Pyth. Dost thou not know the tyrant spared his life 
On the security I gave for him ? 
Stand I not here his pledge ? 

Dion. [Aside.] Tis wonderful ! 
His brow is fixed ; his eye is resolute. — But 
The tyrant doth break faith with thee ! 

Pytli. 'Tis said so. 

Dion. And Damon cannot come to be thy ransom. 

Pyth. I have heard it. 

Dion. And thou — must die when he comes not ! 

Pyth. And that I know, too. 

Dion. If thou knowest it, 
What is thy heart, that it can still be obstinate ? 

Pyth. I should not have heard it; oiy having heard it, 
I still may hold it false. This busy world 
Is but made up of slight contingencies — 
There are a thousand that may alter this, 
Or leave it where it was ; there is not one, 
Should push us a mere point from any pledge 
Of manliness and honor ! 
Yet would I live ! 

Death looks but grimly, 
And the deep grave is cheerless — Yet I do — * 
I do prefer the certainty of death 
Unto the possibility of "dishonor ! 

Dion. Behold.! Behold! 

[Pointing off the side of the stage, i» 
The good ship hath her streaming signal out ! 
The canvas swells up to the wooing wind ! 
The boat puts off — now, now, <p never ! See ! 

[ Crosses, b. 
How swiftly, in her gallant liberty, 
She comes through the calm sea ! — Oh, hark ! the oars 
How rapidly they plash in harmony ! 
Oh, look at Freedom, Pythias, look at it ! 
How beautiful it is upon the sea ! 
See, they approach ! dost hesitate ? 

Pyth. [Agitated.] IsTo ! no ! so help me heaven ! — 5 Tis 
hard ! 
It plucks my heart up, — but no ! no ! 

[ Pushes into the dungeon. 

Dion. O, ye gods ! [Msit, 



502 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

. Scene V. — The exterior of Damort s villa. 

Enter Lucullus, l. 

Luc. It is accomplished ! I have slain his horse ! 
Never shall he return ! This hand has cast 
An intercept between him and the block ! 
Perchance he '11 kill me — but I heed not that : — 
The time shall be, when, at Lucullus' name, 
He will lift up his hands and weep for me. 
Ha ! while I speak he comes ! In desperate haste, 
He rushes from the garden ! Shall I fly 
From the swift fury that awaits upon 
The terrible revealment ? — 'Tis too late ! 

• Enter Damon, r. 

Damon. 'Tis o'er, Lucullus. Bring thou forth my horse. 
I have staid too long, Lucullus, and my speed 
Must leave the winds behind me. By the gods, 
The sun is rushing down the west ! 

Luc. My Lord — 

Damon. Why dost thou tremble ? Fetch the color back 
Into thy cheek, man, nor let thy weak knees 
Knock on each other in their cowardice ! 
Time flies — be brief — go, bring my horse to me ! 
Be thou as swift as speech, or as my heart is ! 

Lac. My lord ! — 

Damon. Why, slave, dost hear me? 
My horse, I say ! The hour is past already, 
Whereon I bade old Neucles summon me. 

Luc. My generous master, do not slay me ! 

Damon. Slave ! 
Art mad ? or dost thou mock me in the last 
And fearfulest extremity ? — Yet you speak not ! 

Luc. You were ever kind and merciful, nor yet 
Commended me unto the cruel whip, 
And I did love you for it ! 

Damon. Where's my horse? 

Luc. When I beheld the means of saving you, 
I could not hold my hand — my heart was in it, 
And in my heart, the hope of giving life 
And liberty to Damon ; and — 

Damon. Go on ! 
I am listening to thee ! 

Luc. And, in hope to save you, 
I slew your steed ! 

Damon. Almighty Heaven ! 



POETICAL EXTRACTS. 503 

Due. Forgive me! ' • \Kneels. 

Damon. I am standing here, to see if the great gods 
Will with their lightning execute my prayer 
Upon thee ! But thy punishment be mine ! 
I'll tear thee into pieces ! [Seizes him. 

Die. Spare me ! Spare me ! 
I saved thy life. Oh, do not thou take mine ! 

Damon. My friend ! my friend ! Oh, that the word would 
kill thee ! 
Pythias is slain ! — his blood is on my soul ! 
He cries, where art thou, Damon? Damon, where art thou? 
And Damon's here ! — The axe is o'er his neck, — 
And in his blood I'm deluged ! 

Due. Spare me ! Spare me ! 

Damon. A spirit cries, ' Revenge and sacrifice !' 
I'll do it— I'll do it. Come— 

Due. Where should I go ? 

Damon. To the eternal river of the dead ! 
The way is shorter than to Syracuse — 
'Tis only far as yonder yawning gulf — 
I'll throw thee with one swing to Tartarus, 
And follow after thee \-^-\Throws him round to r.] Nay, 

slave, no struggling ! 
Pythias is grown impatient ! His red ghost 
Starts from the ground ; and, with a bloody hand, 
Waves to the precipice ! 

Due. Have mercy ! 

Damon. Call 
For mercy on the Furies 1 — not on me ! 

[JExit, dragging Ducullus, l. 

Scene VI. — A public place in Syracuse. — A scaffold, with 
steps ascending to it, upon the right hand. — The gates of 
a prison. — Dxecutio?ier with an axe, and guards discov- 
ered. 

Damocles, l., and Pkocles, b., discovered. 

Proc.' It is a marvellous phantasy, thou speakest of, 
In Dionysius. 

Dam. Yes, his mind is made 
Of strange materials that are almost cast 
In contrariety to one another. 
The school and camp, in his ambition, make 
A strange division. 

Proc. It is his creed that, in this flesh of ours, 
Self ever entertains predominance ; 



S(H THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

And, to all friendship, he hath ever been 

A persevering infidel. For this, 

Belike, he tries a strange experiment. 

What sayest thou ? Will Damon come again? 

Dam. I hold the thing impossible. 
What, when he feels his pent-up soul abroad, 
His limbs unfettered, and the mouutain breeze 
Of liberty all around him ? — 
'Tis visionary. 

Proc. But is there no hope 
Of Dionysius' mercy ? 

Dam. He'll not give 
A second's hundreth part to take a chance in. 
His indignation swells that proud philosophy 
Can make him feel so much out-soared and humbled. 
What a vast multitude upon the hills 
Stretch their long, blackening outline in the round 
Of the blue heavens ! 

Proc. They wait the great event. 
Behold, upon the roofs what thousands gaze 
Towards the distant road that leads to Syracuse. 
An hour ago a noise was heard afar, 
Like to the pulses of the restless surge ; 
But as the time approaches all grows still 
As the wide dead of midnight. 

[ The gates of the prison are flung open, and Pythias, 
guarded, advances to the scaffold, r. Enter Diony- 
sius, still disguised, behind. 

Pyth. How strangely things go on in this bad world — 
This was my wedding-day ; but for the bride, 
I did not think of such a one as death-! 
I deemed I should have gone to sleep to-night, 
This very night — not on the earth's cold lap,— 
But, with as soft a bosom for my pillow, 
And with as true and fond a heart-throb in it 
To lull me to my slumber, as e'er yet 
Couched the repose of love. It was, indeed, 
A blissful sleep to wish for ! 

Dion. [Apart to Pythias^] Courage, Pythias ! 
Damon may yet return ! 

Pyth. May yet return ! 
Speak ! how is this ? return ! — O life, how strong 
Thy love is in the hearts of dying men ! 
[To Dionysius.'] Art thou not he, didst say the tyrant would 
Prevent his coming back to Syracuse ? 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 505 

Dion. It was an idle tale I told to thee ! 
He is as free to come, or stay, as are the winds ! 

Pyth. Ha ! were it possible ! — may he yet come ! — 

\Ascending the scaffold, and looking off. 
I have taken in 

All the horizon's vast circumference 
That, in the glory of the setting sun, 
Opens its wide expanse, yet do I see 
No signal of his coming ! I could die 
Unmoved, by Dionysius — but to be torn 
Green from existence by the friend I loved, — 
Thus from the blossoming and beauteous tree 
Rent by the treachery of him I trusted ! 
No ! no ! I wrong thee, Damon, by that half thought — 
Shame on the foul suspicion ! he hath a wife, 
And child, who cannot live on earth without him, 
And heaven has flung some obstacle in his way 
To keep him back, and lets me die, who am 
Less worthy, and so fitter. 

Dion. By all the gods, there are two minutes only left ! 

Proc. Pythias, advance 
And look your last upon the setting sun — 
Your hour comes on ! 

Pyth. Farewell, Calanthe! O my blessed bride! 
Take her, eternal gods, 

Out of my arms into your own ! Befriend her, 
And let her life glide on in gentleness, 
For she is gentle, and doth merit it/ 

Darn. Your duty, officer. [ Officer approaches him. 

Pyth. Nay, sir, you may spare 
Yourself the pains to fit me for the block. — 

[Draioing the lining of his tunic lower. 
Damon, I do forgive thee ! — I but ask 
Some tears unto my ashes ! 

Dion. Forbear ! 
There is a minute left ; look there ! look there ! 
But 'tis so far off, and the evening shades 
Thicken so fast ; — and yet, 'tis there ! I see it. — 

\A distant shout is heard, e. Pythias leaps up on 
the scaffold. 

By the gods, 

A horse and horseman ! — Far upon the hill, 

They wave their hats, and he returns it — yet 

I know him not — his horse is at the stretch ! [A shout, k. 

Why should they shout as he comes on ? It is — 



506 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

life ! I scarcely dare to wish for thee ; 

And yet — that jutting rock has hid him from me — 
No ! — let it not be Damon ! — he has a wife 
And child ! — gods ! — keep him back ! — [Shouts, e. 

Damon, [without, e.] Where is he ! 

Damon rushes in, e., and stands for a moment, looking/ 
round. 
Ha! 
He is alive ! untouched ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! 

[Falls, with an hysterical laugh, upon the stage. — Three 
loud shouts without. 

Pyth. The gods do know I could have died for him ! 
And yet I dared to doubt ! — I dared to breathe 
The half-uttered blasphemy ! [Damon is raised up. 

He faints ! — How thick 

This wreath of burning moisture on his brow ! 
His face is black with toil, his swelling bulk 
Heaves with swift pantings. Damon, my dear friend ! 

Damon. Where am I ? Have I fallen from my horse, 
That I am stunned, and on my head I feel 
A weight of thickening blood ! — What has befallen me? 
The horrible confusion of a dream 
Is yet upon my sight. — For mercy's sake, 
Stay me not back — he is about to die ! 
Pythias, my friend ! Unloose me, villains, or 
You'll find the might of madness, in mine arm ! 
[Sees Pythias.] Speak to me, let me hear thy voice ! 

Pyth. My friend ! 

Damon. It pierced my brain, and rushed into my heart ! 
There's lightning in it ! — That's the scaffold — there ! 
The block — the axe — the executioner ! 
And here he lives ! — I have him in my soul ! 
[Embraces Pythias.] Ha ! ha ! ha ! 

Pyth. Damon ! 

Damon. Ha ! ha ! 

1 can but laugh ! — I cannot speak to thee ! 
I can but play the maniac, and laugh ! 

Thy hand ! — Oh, let me grasp thy manly hand ! — 

It is an honest one, and so is mine ! 

They are fit to clasp each other ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! 

Pyth. Would that my death could have preserved thee ! 

Damon. Pythias, 
Even in the very crisis to have come — 
To have hit the very forehead of old Time ! 



DIALOGUES, OEIGINAL AND SELECTED. 507 

By heavens ! had I arrived an hour before, 

I should not feel this agony of joy — 

This triumph over Dionysius ! 

Ha ! ha ! — But did'st thou doubt me ? Come, thou did'st — 

Own it, and I'll forgive thee. 

Pyth. For a moment. 

Damon. Oh, that false slave ! — Pythias, he slew my horse, 
In the base thought to save me ! I would have killed him, 
And to a precipice was dragging him, 
When, from the very brink of the abyss, 
I did behold a traveller afar, 
Bestriding a good steed — I rushed upon him, 
Choking with desperation, and yet loud 
In shrieking anguish, I commanded him 
Down from his saddle : he denied me — but 
Would I then be denied ? as hungry tigers 
Clutch their poor prey, I sprang upon his throat : 
Thus, thus, I had him, Pythias ! Come, your horse 
Your horse, your horse, I cried. Ha ! ha ! ha ! 

Dion. [Advamcing and speaking in a loud tone.] Damon ! 

Damon. [Jumping on the scaffold.] I am here upon the 
scaffold ! look at me : 
I am standing on my throne ; as proud a one 
As yon illumined mountain, where the sun 
Makes his last stand ; let him look on me, too ; 
He never did behold a spectacle 

More full of natural glory. Death is — [Shouts, e.] Ha ! 
All Syracuse starts up upon her hills, 
And lifts her hundred thousand hands. [Shouts, e.] She 

shouts, [Shouts, e. 

Hark, how she shouts ! [Shouts, e.] Oh, Dionysius ! 
When wert thou in thy life hailed with a peal 
Of hearts and hands, like that one ! Shout again ! 

[Shouts, e. 
Again ! [Shouts, e£| until the mountains echo you, 
And the great sea joins in that mighty voice, 
And old Enceladus, the Son of Earth, 

Stirs in his mighty caverns. [Three shouts.] Tell me, slaves, 
Where is your tyrant ? Let me see him, now ; 
Why stands he hence aloof? Where is your master? 
What is become of Dionysius ? 
I would behold, and laugh at him ! 

[Dionysius advances between Damon and Pythias — 
Damon being on the scaffold — and throws off his dis- 
guise. 



508 THE PATEIOTTC SPEAKER. 

Dion. Behold me. 

Damon and Pyth. How ? 

Dion. Stay your admiration for awhile, 
Till I have spoken my commandment here. 
Go, Damocles, and bid a herald cry 
Wide through the city, from the eastern gate 
Unto the most remote extremity, 
That Dionysius, tyrant as he is, 

Gives back his life to Damon. [Exit Damocles, l. 

Pyth. How, Dionysius. 
Speak that again ! 

Dion. I pardon him. 

Pyth. Oh, gods ? 
You give his life to Damon ? 

Dion. Life and freedom ! 

[Shouts, drums, r. and l. — Damon staggers from the 
scaffold into the arms of Pythias. 

Disposition of the Characters at the Fall of the Curtain. 

Damon. Pythias. 

Dionysius, Procles. 

Officer. Officer. 

L. R. 



PAST TRAIN, OR YOUNG AMERICA IN LONDON. 

Characters and Costumes : — Colonel Jack Thoroughfare, Mack dress 
coat, white vest, black trousers, black silk neckerchief, gloves OMd rough 
paletot, muffler, travelling cap, &c. Griffin, 1st. Dark blue trousers, 
white night cap, morning gown, no vest. 2d. Blue coat, gilt buttons, 
buff vest, white neckerchief and bald wig. Biffin, 1st . Wight gown 
and night cap. 2d. Turkish costume, turban, &c. 

m 

Scene. — Griffin's warehouse. Door l. of c. flat, leading to 
a street. Window r. of c. flat, with shutters. Doors in 
oblique r. 1 e. and 2d e. Door in l. 1 e. oblique. Long 
counter down c. ivith desk, pens, ink and paper. Pack- 
ages of goods, calicoes, silks, dbc, hung about. 

At rising of curtain a loud ringing is heard at the street 
door-bell y the stage is quite dark. 

Thoroughfare. [ Without d. in f. bawling^] Halloa ! halloa! 
house ! — helps — niggers — boss, halloa ! wake up, you critters ! 
Griffin. \ Without r. 1 e.] Eh ! who's that ? 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 509 

Mrs. Griffin. [Without R. 1 e.] Oh! dear! what's the 
matter ? 

Grif [As before.] Somebody's ringing the warehouse bell, 
my dear. 

Hinging again heard. 

Thor. [As before^] Open the door ! darnation crocodiles ! 
Why don't you come ? 

Grif. [As before.] I'm coming, I'm coming ; I must get 
my trousers on. [Enters hurriedly and confused, half 
asleep, from door r. 1 e., buttoning on the braces of his 
trousers ; he has a white night cap on ; — feeling his way to 
the counter.] Where the dickens are the lucifers and candle? 

Thor, [Ringing again.] -ILil hi! Hurry up your cakes, 
there ! 

Grif Who are you ? What do you want ? [Lighting 
candle.] 

Thor. [As before^] I'm burning — flaming ! 

Gh-if, [Agitated.] Mercy upon me! the house Is on fire! 

Thor. [As before^] Make haste ; I'm scorching to an al- 
mighty cinder! 

Grif I shan't be a second, Mr. Fireman ; I'm only light- 
ing a candle. [To himself] It's lucky my wife's deafj or 
she'd be in hysterics. 

Thor. [ Continuing ringing?^ Hi ! hi ! All aboard ! Put 
on the steam ! grease your wheels ! look sharp ! 

Ghrif. [ Unlocking and unbolting door l. in fat.] Here I 
am, fireman ! here I am. [ Opens door.] 

Miter Thoroughfare with a cigar. in his mouth, with over- 
coat, muffler, c&c. 

Gh*if. Why, this is not a fireman ! [To him.] Who are 
you ? What do you want ? 

Thor. I want to talk to you, I calculate. 

Gi*if Talk to me ! why, what o'clock is it ? 

Thor. Hold the candle; let's look at my chronometer, 
[looks at his watch,] four to a minute. 

Grif. Talk to me at four o'clock in the morning ! [to him- 
self] this is a thief. I'm going to be robbed. 

Thor. Well, now, you see, I'm a fast train — high pressure — 
express — tell me at once, slap right away — are you the person ? 

Grif The person ! what person ? 

Thor. The father — the papa, as you Europeans call it. 

Grif. [To himself] It is some escaped lunatic — I shall be 
murdered. 

Thor. You was at the Lord Mayor's dinner last night ? 

Grif Yes, but I don't see — 



THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Thor. You ate three plates of turtle soup ? 

Grif. Yes, but really — 

Thor. And was almost choked to death with 
of green fat ? 

Grif. Sir, I — 

Thor. You had a young lady sittin' beside you, — with 
eyes ! — nose !— i mouth ! 

Grif. My daughter Penelope. But I must beg — 

Thor. [Interrupting.] That's enough. You're the squash 
I want. 

Grif. The squash ? 

Thor. Yes, I guess so. [Throwing off rough paletot, 
muffler, gloves and travelling cap, c0c, dbc.~} Sir, I am Colonel 
Jack Thoroughfare, city of Elmira, county of Chemung, 
Empire State, — formerly conductor on the New York and 
Erie ; I'm a fast train, steam always up, high pressure, ex- 
press — and I have the honor to ask your daughter Penelope's 
hand in marriage ! 

Grif. [e., indignant and astounded.] What! wake me up 
at four o'clock in the morning for such foolery as this ! Get 
out of my house ! 

Thor. Well, I guess I shan't ! 

Grif [Enraged.] Sir, I warn you that I never go to rest 
at night without a pair of loaded pistols at my bedside ; so 
be off with you this instant, or — 

Thor. What ! without an interview with Penelope ? I 
calculate not ! 

Grif. [Ironically — enraged.] Upon my word ! I suppose 
you'd like me to make her dress herself on purpose to receive 
you? 

Thor. Well, I reckon I don't require that. 

Grif. [Sneeringly .] I'm very glad to hear it. 

Thor. It isn't her clothes I'm in love with — it isn't her 
clothes I'm going to marry ! let her come as she is. 

Grif But I tell you — 

Thor. [Interrupting.] Ah ! you don't know me — though 
I'm a regular right-eend-up-and-down New Yorker, my father 
and mother were Southerners. I was hatched on the banks 
of the Mississippi and raised in New Orleans. 

Grif. What the deuce is that to me ? 

Thor. [Continuing, more and 'more animatedly^] And there, 
when we fall in love with a young gal, we never stop to make 
inquiries about her rank, or name, or sex — 

Grif. Bnt, sir — 

Thor. [Continuing.] We foller her; if she gets into a 
carriage we crack after it — we jump up behind — 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 511 

Grif. But, sir— 

Thor. [Continuing] We get a slash with a whip, but 
that's nothing — we fall off, we clamber on again — we find out 
where the father lives — 

Grif. But, sir — 

Thor. We rush to our lodgings to dress in a suitable man- 
ner for claiming a young female's hand. We make our twi- 
light — as we say at the New York Hotel — comb our hair^ — 
get some brandy and water, and rush back again — 

Grif. But, sir — 

Thor. We find the father gone to bed, fast asleep — but we 
say to him in a voice of eternal thunder — wake up, venerable 
hoss ! dress yourself, and marry us ! 

Grif. [Coolly. ~\ Ah, indeed! That's the usual mode of 
proceeding in New Orleans, is it ? 

Thor. [Lighting cigar at candle, which Griffin has in 
his hand, coolly] Til bet ! 

Grif. Well, in London we act rather differently. When 
we're waked up in such a manner, we take a good stout stick 
and break the intruder's bones, sir. Now, harkye, sir! you 
want to see my daughter ? 

Thor. Well, I do. 

Grif Well, you shan't see her. 

Thor. So the showman said to me, when I was a young- 
ster, and wanted to look at his fat pig without paying ! but I 
did. 

Grif. You wish to marry her. 

Thor. Right away, slap ; fast train — through by daylight ! 

Grif. Well, you shan't marry her. 

Thor. So my grandfather said to my father ; but he did. 

Grif. And, moreover, my friend, I am going to put you 
out of that door ! 

Thor. No, you're not, I calculate ; when I came in I locked 
it and put the key in my pocket, [showing key] and if I pitch 
it out of the window [going to window^ — 

Grif I shall see if I can't pitch you out after it [advancing 
fiercely] 

Thor. Stop ! turn your steam off, put on the brake ; — it 
wouldn't be decent to come to such an etarnal collision and 
'smash-up with one's father-in-law. 

Grif Father-in-law be — 

Thor. Don't swear ; I'll back my engine and retire. 

Grif. Thankye ! [To himself] The impudent American 
jackanapes ! 

Thor. But I shall be here again shortly. 

Grif [To himself ] Not if / can prevent it. 



512 THE PATEIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Thor. So dress yourself ; get into a better temper, take off 
that horrid white night cap [Griffin in a rage pulls down 
the cap completely over his face] ; meantime I'll go and give 
orders for the wedding outfit. 

Grif [Putting up night cap furiously^] What? 

Thor. Oh, don't be uneasy, I'll do the thing in style. We 
York boys know how to decorate the female sect ; and she 
shall have a most almighty rumbunctious wedding suit. 

Grif. This is too much ! 

Thor. Oh ! not half enough — such a breakfast — all will be 
right — slick— long glasses with foam at the top, like a fog 
working thro' a speaking trumpet. Good by, father-in-law — 
mind, I'm Jack Thoroughfare — look out — I shan't be long, 
I'm a fast train — steam always up — lightning express ! 

[Exit at door l. in flat. 

Grif. [Solus.'] Was there ever such a brazen rascal ? He 
does not get inside my door again, if I know it ! [Locks door.] 
Ugh ! the scamp has thoroughly waked me up — it doesn't 
seem to have disturbed Biffin, though ! [Listening at door, 
2 e. r.] He's fast asleep, and snoring ! But as he was at a 
bal masque last night, that's not surprising. I don't like suc'h 
places; but, poor fellow, he begged so hard to go, just for 
once, that I hadn't the heart to refuse him. Ah, he's the son- 
in-law for my money — a nice quiet country lad — and so re- 
spectful in his behavior — listens to me with such deference ; 
and laughs at all my jokes ! Ugh ! [ Gaping.] whatever shall 
I do with myself till it's time to open the shop, [rolls up 
blind, lifts loindow, opens shutters, a gas lamp is seen burn- 
ing] — day is breaking — yes, it's getting light ! I'll wake 
Biffin, he'll be company, at all events. [Knocks at door, 2 e. 
r.] Hey, Biffin ! Biffin ! 

Biffin. [ Without, sleepily^] Eh ! I'm asleep — who's that ? 

Grif. Me. Get up! 

Bif. [A s before^] Who is me ? 

Grif. Me —Griffin — get up, I want you ! 
Bif. [As before?] Oh, very well, I'm coming. 

Grif Make haste ! 

Bif. [Half opening door and popping his head out with 
white night cap, dbc, on.] What's the matter? Are you 
sick ? Ha, ha, ha ! [Half laughing.] 

Grif No ; but I'm all alone. 

Bif He, he, he, he ! [Laughing^] That's a good 'un. 

Grif. [To himself] .He thinks I've said something funny. 
I wake you up to keep me company. 
Bif What? now? 

Grif Yes ; you don't suppose I called for you next week. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 513 

JBif. He, he, he, he ! [Laughing, stopping suddenly, and 

gaping, ,] Ugh ! I'm mortal sleepy. 

Grif. Why don't you come in ? 

Bif. I've got nothing on — I'm all in white. 

Grif. Dress yourself, then. 

Bif. I can't. You see I came back in my bal masque dress 
and I left my clothes at the place where I hired it, and they 
are not to send them till nine o'clock this morning. 

Grif. Then put your bal masque dress on. 

Bif. Ha, ha, ha ! that's a good 'un ! Oh, very well ! [He 
disappears, closing door after him.] 

Grif. It's quite light. I may as well put this candle out. 
[Turning his bach to window, he goes to put the candle out.] 

Thoroughfare, appearing at window. 

Thor. That's right ! never waste your grease — it's broad 
day — the sun will rise in ten minutes, I calculate. 

Grif. You here again ! 

Thor. [Jumping through window.] Well, I guess I am ! 

Grif. And through the window ! 

Thor. I couldn't get through the door ! 

Grif, r. What has brought you back ? 

Thor., l. An idee. As I was going out, I read your sign- 
board — " Griffin's Ribbon Warehouse," and it struck me all 
on end that I wanted some ribbon. 

Grif. Sir, I never sell by retail. 

Thor. And I always buy at wholesale. I'll take — let me 
figger — I'll take sixty thousand yards. 

Grif [Astonished.] Sixty thousand yards ! 

Thor. Yes. Red, yaller, and blue, in equal partitions — 
twenty thousand of each. [Sitting dovm, and putting his legs 
across a chair.] Let's see yer samples, slick, right away — 
I'm a fast train — steam always up— high pressure — esc-press — 

Grif. Are you serious ? 

Thor. As serious as a tree'd bear. 

Grif. And are you solvent ? 

Thor. If the Bank of England is. I shall pay you in their 
notes. 

Grif [ To himself^] My stars and garters, here's a chance ! 
[To him.] Pray take a seat, sir. 

Thor. Well, I guess I've got one. 

Grif [To himself .] Here's a customer ! [To him.] Will 
you excuse me for a moment, while I put on my coat ? 

Thor. Grease your wheels — look sharp ! 

Grif I won't be a second ; but I couldn't think of waiting 
on such an order in this state. [Mcit hastily, d. r. 1 e. 



514 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Thor. All right — go ahead! [Takes out note-case and pen- 
cil — calculates^ Let — me — figger ! — Sixty thousand yards 
of ribbon at — [ Galling after Griffin.] What can you put 'em 
in at, a yard ? 

Grif. That depends on the quality, sir. [Entering hastily ', 
putting coat on.~\ Do you want a common or best sort of 
goods ? 

Thor. No matter which ! 

Grif. Satin or sarsnet ? 

Thor. No matter which ! 

Grif. Figured or plain ? 

Thor. No matter which ! 

Grif. British or foreign ? 

Thor. No matter which ! 

Grif Broad or narrow ? 

Thor. No matter which ! 

Grif [Out of breath.'] Bless my heart and soul! he has 
taken all the breath out of my body ! 

Thor. Come now — bright look-out ! — yer price ? 

Grif Well, sir, [considering] you'll take a mixture of all 
sorts ? 

Thor. I will. 

Grif. Blue, yellow, and red — plain colors. 

Thor. That's the track. 

Grif. Hum ! I think I can average 'em — one with another 
— at — [considering] — 

Thor. Now, then, blow your whistle ! I'm a fast train — 
high pressure — ecc-press ! — 
. Grif Two pence a yard. 

\Lamplighter is seen through window and puts out 
gaslight. 

Thor. Too much. 

Grif Well, say a penny — three farthings, then. 

Thor. Agreed. [Booking it in his note-case — rising.] 
That'll be a very passable operation — not so good as the 
wine, though, I reckon. 

Grif. [ With curiosity.] The wine ? [Inquiringly^ 

Thor. Yes ; that was the first very large spec I ever drove 
at. Ha, ha, ha ! it was almighty droll. 

Grif Was it, though ? — I'm fond of hearing droll things. 

Thor. Are you ? Well, listen ! I was -tracking it through 
France on the look-out for bargains, and, on getting to Bor- 
deaux, I heard that the proprietor of one o' the finest vine- 
yards in the neighborhood, being tarnation hard up for cash, 
was wanting to sell the hull of that year's vintage, just as it 
stood in the presses, before casking off, at a rayther consider- 



DIALOGUES, OK1GINAL AND SELECTED. 515 

able sacrifice. I figgered a little, and asked the advice of a 
friend — a Frenchman — who said it wouldn't do. Then I fig- 
gered agin, and, thinking it would do, I started off to make a 
deal. Griffin ! never, in a matter of importance, put too much 
trust in a Frenchman ! 

Grif. Why not? 

Thor. I arrived at the estate, a little way up the country. 
Who do you think was the first person I clapped my eyes on? 

Grif. I don't know. 

Thor. The dear friend I'd consulted about the operation. 
He had got there half-an-hour before me, and bought the 
hull lot for himself, the nigger ! 

Grif. Well, that was sharp practice. 

Thor. What would you have done in my position? 

Grif. I should have looked daggers at him, and walked 
away, with contempt. 

Thor. Walked away ! You, a Griffin ? — you're nothing 
better than a kangaroo ! 

Grif But what could you do ? 

Thor. What could I do ? 

Grif What did you do ? 

Thor. I tarred the fellow with his own stick, bought five 
thousand eight hundred and forty-two casks — every one I 
could find, in the neighborhood, far and near. 

Grif. But as the Frenchman had the wine ? — 

Thor. But he couldn't barrel it off without my casks, I 
calculate, and in forty-eight hours it would spile. 

Grif. And what did he do ? 

Thor. The best he could — sold me his bargain at twenty- 
five per cent, discount. Now, that's what I call an operation. 

Grif. [To himself] I declare, what a prodigious clever 
fellow ! He's worth twenty such chaps as Biffin. 

Thor. [Aside.] I've nailed him, I guess. [To him."] Well, 
father-in-law, am I to have your daughter? 

Grif. My dear sir, if it depended wholly on me, you should, 
for I'm quite fascinated ; you've perfectly charmed me — but, 
unluckily, there's my wife. 

Thor. What! have you got a wife? Why in thunder 
didn't you tell me so before ? Where is she ? 

Grif In her chamber, there. [Indicating d. 1 e. e.] 

Thor. [Knocking at door 1 e. e. and shouting through the 
key-hole.] Marm — marm — I've the honor to ask your daugh- 
ter's hand in marriage. 

Grif But she's asleep 

Thor. No matter — blow the whistle — I'm a fast train — 
high pressure — express ! Marm — marm. [Knocking.] 



516 THE PATKIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Grif. But she's as deaf as a door nail ! 

Thor. Deaf? Then I'll go and buy a speaking trumpet. 
[Going to door in flat l.] 

Grif. [^Detaining him!] But that's not all — you have a rival. 

Thor. A rival ! is he a Yankee ? 
■ Grif. No. 

Thor. Then I'll switch him off in a twinkling. 

Voice. [ Without at window^] Mr. Thoroughfare ! Mr. 
Thoroughfare ! 

Grif. Some one is calling you. 

Voice. [As before.] The upholsterer has come, sir. 

Grif. The upholsterer ! 

Thor. Yes. I've taken the house next door, and he's 
going to furnish it. 

Grif. [e.] Taken the house next door — what for? 

Thor. [l.] Can't you guess ? for me and Penelope, [going] 
why, the door's locked. I'll be back in a minute. Get your 
daughter out o' bed — look up the ribbons — put the steam on — 
I'm a fast train — high pressure — express. [Jumps over coun- 
ter, and exits through window, e. of flat.] t 

Grif. [Bewildered.] But, sir! [To himself] TJie up- 
holsterer — the steam — the ribbons — the daughter — I'm per- 
fectly bewildered — he's an excellent match, though! — that 
Biffin, compared to him, is a mere imbecile. 

Miter Bieein, door, 2 e. e. in Turkish costume, turban, <&c, 

<foc. 

Bif. [e.] Here I am, father-in-law ! [Gaping^] I'm mor- 
tal sleepy. 

Grif. [l, aside.] How shall I break it to him ? [To Biffin.] 
Biffin, you must prepare yourself! I am about to inflict a 
heavy blow on you, I am afraid. 

Bif He, he, he, he ! [Baughing.] 

Grif. [To himself] I've said something droll again. [To 
him.] Biffin, I can't consent to give my daughter to any 
but a clever, intelligent fellow ! 

Bif. Of course you can't. Ugh ! I'm mortal sleepy. 

Grif. And, without at all meaning anything to your dis- 
paragement, I want to make a trial of your intelligence at 
once. 

Bif Very well ; only don't be long about it [to himself] 
I'm thundering sleepy ! 

Grif. Listen, Biffin. If a Frenchman were to do you out 
of a bargain in wine, what should you do, now ? 

Bif Do ? — Now ? [Reflecting and gaping.] I should go 
to bed and reflect about it. 



DIALOGUES, OKIGmAL AND SELECTED. 517 

Grif. Come, now; I'll put you on the scent! Tell me 
what do people put wine into ? 

Bif. [Reflecting] Put wine into? Why, into their 
mouths! 

G-rif. No — no — before it is drunk. 

Bif Why, into the cellar, of course. 

Grif. Yes ; but what do they put the wine into that is in 
the cellar ? 

Bif. Into bottles. 

Grif. Yes ; but before they put it into bottles ? 

Bif Before they put it into bottles — let me see — before 
they — 

Grif. Oh ! into casks, you fool ! 

Bif Ah ! so they do ! 

Grif. Well? 

Bif. Well ? [To himself] What is he driving at ? < 

Grif [Aside] He can't understand! [To him] Biffin, 
I must tell you one thing. It's quite clear you wasn't born 
in Chemung County, and raised in New Orleans. 

Bif. Well, if it was only to tell me that, that you m^de 
me get up — 

Grif No, sir ; it was also to tell you that you can't many 
my daughter. 

Bif What? 

Grif. I gave you my word, I know ; but I take it back 
again. 

Bif. Nonsense — impossible — I adore her, and she adores 
me — and — and — if you knew all — [to himself] I dare not tell 
him. 

.Grif Biffin ! Talking is useless ! I'm flint — I'm ice — I'm 
granite ! I've promised her hand to Mr. Thoroughfare — a 
fast train — high pressure — express — who has come all the way 
from America to buy 60,000 yards of ribbon of me. 

Bif. 60,000 yards of ribbon! Ah, I see. He, he, he, he. 
Well, I do declare ! 

Grif What are you laughing at ? 

Bif He, he, he! Mr. Griffin, just tell me one thing. 

Grif Well? 

Bif What's the day of the month ? 

Grif The day of the month? [Considering] Why, let 
me see, this is the first of April. 

Bif. Exactly ! And you're making an April fool of me — 
he, he, he ! 

Grif [Uneasily] Eh! 

Bif Or else your Mr. Thoroughfare is making a fool of 
you. 



518 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

Grif. [Astounded^] By Jove ! 

JBif. The idea of a man coming all the way from America, 
at 4 o'clock in the morning, to buy 60,000 yards of ribbon — 
[suddenly] has he paid for 'em ? 

Gfrif. [Dumbfounded.] No ! 

JBif. He, he, he. Capital. 

Gfrif. [Angrily^] Bother! |~ To himself] There is no doubt 
of it, I've been regularly bamboozled. 

Thor. [ Without^] Look out for the in-gine, when the bell 
rings ! 

Gfrif That's he, and he has dared to come back ! leave 
me, I'll settle him, I'll turn the tables on him ! 

JBif I'd kick him out of the house if I were you. 

Grif Go, go ! I will. 

Bif. [ Going.] Ugh, I'm terrible sleepy ! 

[Exit Biffin into his own room, 2 d. r. 

Grif. Now for it ! 

Enter Thoroughfare through window with speaking trum- 
pet in his hand. 

Thor. [As he enters.] Behind time — push'em along ! Here 
I am ! Got the speaking trumpet. Where's the old lady ? 
But what's the matter, father-in-law ? 

Grif. Oh ! you stick to that, eh ? you still wish to marry 
my daughter ? 

Thor. I guess I do — fast train, you know ! Connection 
sure ! 

Grif. Train ! yes ; some connection of this rattle-headed 
chap that's laying rails here in London, I suppose. 

Thor. No, sirree ! That fellow rams around, like a bee in 
a tar-barrel, but he don't come to no pint. He's fast, but he 
hain't got brakes on. We both run on the " beat or bust" 
track — but I always beat, and he always busts ! 

Grif Well, -hark ye, Mr. American! I'll trouble you to go 
and play out the remainder of your joke elsewhere. We 
want no April fool husbands here. 

Thor. Do you doubt my sincerity ? 

Grif Most decidedly. 

Thor. [ Goes to counter and writes.] Then I'll prove it, I 
calculate — there, is that enough ? [Jffanding him paper on 
which he has written.] 

Grif [l.] What's this? 

Thor. [r.] An acknowledgment that I have received a 
thousand pounds from you, as your daughter's wedding por- 
tion. 

Grif [Puzzled.] Well! 



DIALOGUE^ ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 519 

Thor. If I don't marry her, I shall be obliged to refund it 
to you, shan't I ? I reckon you are satisfied now ? 

Grif Then you really are serious ? 

Thor. To be sure I am ; as the Cape Cod fisherman said 
when he got a bite, " as long as you hold on to one eend, I 
holds on to t'other" — but have you looked the ribbons out ? 

Grif. Not yet. 

Thor. Want 'em soon. Going to clear at least five hun- 
dred pounds by that lot. 

Grif. Five hundred pounds ? How ? 

Thor. Well, you're my father-in-law, so I don't mind trust- 
ing you ! [very confidentially] I had it from a friend at head- 
quarters. But you wont blab ? 

Grif. Not I! 

Thor. Your ministers are disagreeing ! 

Grif. Well! 

Thor. They're altogether by the ears, like a city corpora- 
tion. 

Grif, Well ! 

Thor. There's going to be an almighty smash-up. 

Grif. Well! 

Thor. [More and more animated.] And a dissolution of 
Parliament. 

Grif. Well! 

Thor. And a general election. 

Grif. Well! 

Thor. Voters from eend to eend o' the country, high and 
low, rich and poor, every man on 'em with a cockade at his 
button-hole. All England divided into Reds, Yallers and 
Blues— ribbons at a premium — Carlton Club — Reform Club — 
take the whole lot between 'em — cockades is as necestpry as 
bank-notes among you at election times. 

Grif. [To himself] What a clever fellow — what a won- 
derful man ! ■ r 

Thor. The more I figger onto it, the more I like it. — I 
shouldn't be surprised if it beats the wine, and the gloves 
too! 

Grif. [ With curiosity .] The gloves ! What gloves ? 

Thor. Oh, another bully little operation, that brought me 
in some awful pretty pickins. 

Grif. Indeed ! 

Thor, Yes ! I was laying in bed one morning, in New- 
York, about three years ago, grinding away at what I should 
tackle next, when an idea let into me like a streak of light- 
ning. Up I jumped — shaved — dressed — poked half a dozen 
shirts into my pocket — bolted down to the North River pier, 



520 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

and in two hours was bowling through the Narrows in the 
French steamer, bound for Havre. 

Grif. Bless me ! [To himself.'] I never heard of such a 
man ! 

Thor. Well, I guess I was active, some ! ' We landed in 
France after a fortnight's voyage, and within the next twenty- 
four hours I had bought twelve hundred dozen, at fifteen 
cents a pair, and in six weeks afterwards sold 'em in America 
for thirty. 

Grif. But you couldn't have made much by that, consider- 
ing the heavy duty you have to pay in the United States. 

Thor. But I didn't pay any duty, I guess ! 

Grif What? 

Thor. I had two large boxes made, I calculate. 

Grif Well! 

Thor. And packed all the right-hand gloves in one, and all 
the left-hands in the other. 

Grif Well? 

Thor. Shipped the right-handers to Philadelphia, and the 
left to New York. 

Grif. But that didn't prevent the Customs f»om seizing 
them. 

Thor. They did seize 'em ; I always intended they should. 

Grif What? 

Thor. I declared value at five cents a pair, and they took 
'em at that at both places, paying me the regulation ten per 
cent, profit on my valuation, of course. I fobbed Uncle Sam's 
cash with amazin' satisfaction, I can tell you. 

Grif But you had lost your gloves ? 

Thor. Father-in-law, you'd make a capital milch-cow for a 
down|^ster ! Tell me what eventuates with goods taken in 
that sort o' way by the Custom House. Our regulations is 
just the same as your'n. 

Grif. Why, they're sold by public auction. 

Thor. Exactly, and these was sold that way ! Philadel- 
phia first — I was there — looked at the lot— found out they 
were all for the right hand — no use to anybody — whispered 
my discovery about the room — bought 'em all for an old 
song — a quarter dollar a dozen — had'nt a single bid against 
me. 

Grif. Astonishing ! 

Thor. New-York — sale three days after — same process — 
same discovery — all left hand — same result — paid the Cus- 
toms two cents for what they paid me five and a-half for — 
got 'em in, duty free — clapped the two hands together, and 
the speculation was complete. 



DIALOGUES, OEIGLNAL AND SELECTED. 521 

Grif. I'm overwhelmed ! I'm dumb with admiration — I'll 
have no other husband but you, and my daughter shall be 
your son-in-law ; that is, I will be your mother. No, no, 
well, never mind, it's all settled, I authorize you to pop the 
question whenever you please. 

Thor. I'm ready, I guess — steam always up — where is 
she? 

Grif. In her room ; there, but you must wait a little, I 
should like you to obtain her mother's consent first. 

Thor. Very well. 

Gh'if You'll find the old lady there getting breakfast 
ready ; you must speak pretty loud — she is so exceedingly 
deaf. 

Thor. Where's my trumpet ? I'll bugle it into her ! I'll 
blow my whistle sharp enough. [Exit rapidly, speaking 
through trumpet, d. 1 e. e. h.] How do you do, inarm ? 

Grif. I'll follow you directly. 

He-enter Biffin, door k. 2 l. 

JBif. Well, have you settled him ? 

Grif. Yes, everything is arranged — he is to marry her ! 

JBif. What! Thoroughfare? 

Thor. [ Without, through speaking trnmpet.~] I have the 
honor to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage. 

Grif. He is making his proposals, you see. 

JBif But why him rather than me? 

Grif Why Biffin, if you bought a lot of gloves in France, 
and wanted to send 'em to this country, how would you 
manage it ? 

JBif Manage it ! I'd pack 'em up, and start 'em off. 

Grif. Now, I'll give you a hint. You should have two 
boxes made ; [changing his mind f\ but no, I'm wasting 
my time — it is of no use — it's too much for you. 

Thor. [In stentorian tones without, through trumpet as 
as before.~\ I want to marry your daughter. 

Mrs. Griffi,n. [ Without] Oh, dear ! Good Mr. Robber, 
I've nothing for you. 

Grif. She's frightened at the trumpet — she'll go into fits — 
I must go and give him a lift. [Exit Geiffitst, door e. 1 e. 

JBif [Solus.] Ah ! it is all very well ; but he little thinks 
that his daughter has been married to me for this last three 
months. What's to be done ? I dare not tell him, for the 
old pig is so obstinate and touchy that he'd turn us both out 
of doors, to starve in the streets. I've a good mind to con- 
fess all to this American, and throw myself on his mercy. I 
will ; I'll write a letter to him, and explain the whole affair. 



522 THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 

[Sits at counter, and begins to write.] Sir, I respectfully beg 
to inform you that, [continuing writing.] 

•Enter Thoroughfare 1 d. r. h., speaks through trumpet as 
re-enters , " Your daughter, marm !" 

Thor. [Not noticing Biffin. I have bawled myself hoarse. 
What an ugly old woman she is. I could never have dreamt 
of her being the mother of such a pretty critter. 

JBif. [As before.] And our marriage took place privately, 
because — 

Thor. [l. seeing him.] Eh ! who's that ? a Turk ! a cus- 
tomer from Constantinople ! I calculate he don't see me ; 
my intended is in this room. If I could but take a peep 
through the keyhole. [Peeps through keyhole of door 1 e. 
l. h., and recoils in consternation.] Eh ! darnation croco- 
diles ! that's not her ! — that's not my angel of the Lord 
Mayor's dinner. I've made a mistake in the house, I guess ; 
I've followed the wrong father ; I've got into the wrong 
cars, and I've signed an acknowledgment for a thousand 
pounds. Oh, stupid Jack Thoroughfare ! 

JBif [r. starting up.] Thoroughfare! is that your name, 
sir? 

Thor. It is, I calculate, good morning ! Allah, Allah, 
Bismillah ! Salaam! Alliekoum ! [bowing.] [To himself .] 
Only I don't like him ! What's to be done ? She is as ugly 
as her mother ! 

JBif [Giving him the letter, open.] Be so kind as to 
read that, sir. 

Thor. I can't read Arabic ; besides, I've no time now, Mr. 
Mussulman. 

Bif But it is of great consequence. 

Thor. Really, my good Mohammedan, [glancing over the let- 
ter^ why, it's English ! — eh, what ! married already ? [Forc- 
ing Biffin to look through keyhole?^ Who's that ? 

Bif. That's my Penelope. 

Thor. Married to you? 

Bif. Yes, to me ; but you won't betray us — you'll get us 
out of the scrape ? 

Thor. [Dancing.] Ha ! ha ! ha ! Well, you've got me 
out of a scrape, so I'll try and pull you through the same 
hole. 

JEnter Griffin, d. 1 e. r. 

Grif [As he enters.] It's all right ! my wife consents. 
Thor. [To himself] How shall I manage it ! [To Grif- 
fin.] All right. Go ahead ! I'm delighted, I guess. 



DIALOGUES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 523 

Bif. [Aside.] Eh ! is he going to marry her, too ? 

Thor. But betwixt you and I, Griffin, you — hem ! — when 
I come to take a view of your daughter by daylight, I — I— 
[Peeping through keyhole as before] — ah ! [.joyfully] — 
snakes and sea-sarpents ! there she is ! there she is ! that's 
the one, I calculate. [Dragging Biffin to the door, and 
jamming his eye to the keyhole.] Who's that? 

JBif. What's the matter? [ Turning to Thoroughfare.] 
That's my wife ! 

Thor. There's two of 'em ! one an angel and the other a— 

Bif. [Looking through keyhole] Oh, that's Isabella ! 

Thor. Isabella ! who does she belong to ? 

Bif. She's my sister. 

Thor. Turk, I ask your sister's hand in marriage. 

Qrif. What? 

Thor. I'll turn Mohammedan, if it's necessary. 

Bif, c. Oh, there's no occasion for that. I give my con- 
sent, if you can obtain her's. 

Grif But my daughter, — perhaps you forget you have 
signed an acknowledgment for a thousand pounds ? 

Thor. No, I don't ; I can afford to be generous. Take him 
for a son-in-law ; hand the acknowledgment over to him, and 
I'll settle it. 

Grif. With all my heart. [To himself] What a noble- 
hearted Yankee ! [ To Biffin, giving paper.] There, I give 
you my daughter, and £1000 as a wedding portion! 

Thor. And [taking paper coolly from Biffin, who is read- 
ing it intently] now, you give me your sister and £1000 as a 
wedding portion; you see it comes out quite square. 

Grif [Mystified.] Eh! 

Bif. [Mystified] Eh! 

Thor. Ah ! I see ! [ Grossing to c] Don't you understand ? 
I make you a present of £1000, you make him a present of 
£1000, and he makes me a present of £1000 ! — it's perfectly 
right ! 

Grif. Ah! Yes, yes. [To Biffin.] I don't exactly under- 
stand it, though. 

Thor. [To Biffin.] But you understand ? 

Bif [l. to Griffin.] Why, we've all three made presents 
of £1000 to one another ! 

Grif. [/Still unconvinced.] But we've none of us got a 
farthing ! 

Thor. Of course not ! That's the biscuit and pop dodge. 

Grif. Biscuit and pop dodge ? What's that ? 

Thor. [ Grossing to c] I'll tell you. You see, I heard in 
New York that you Britishers were so darnation cute that 



524 



THE PATRIOTIC SPEAKER. 



you'd have the teeth out of a fellow's mouth before he could 
open his lips. " Very well," says I ; " I must hold on then, 
and look out for snags." — After I landed in Liverpool, I just 
dropped into a baker's shop — " Hallo^ boss," says I, " give me 
a biscuit, will you ?" — " There you are," says he. — " Thank 
you," says I ; and off I goes. — " Hallo, stop !" says he ; " you 
haven't paid." — " Paid ?" says I ; " I guess I asked you to 
give me the biscuit, not to sell it." — " That won't do," says 
he ; " none of your Yankee tricks." — " Very well," says I ; 
" how much ?" — " A penny," says he. — " Very well," says I ; 
" but I feel rather thirsty. — How much is your pop a glass ?" 
" That's a penny, too," says he. — " Very well," says I ; " let's 
have it." — Pop goes the pop, and off it goes. — " Very nice," 
says I ; "good-morning !" — "Halloa," says he, " where's the 
money ?" — " There's the biscuit," says I. " Biscuit a penny, 
pop a penny — the barter's all fair, I guess. You gave me the 
pop and I gave you the biscuit." — "But you haven't paid for 
the biscuit," says he. — "Why should I?" says I, "when I 
haven't had it. Good-morning, boss," says I; and off I slopes. 
[a] So now everything is arranged to your satisfaction, I 
calculate ? 

JBif. Yes. Ha, ha, ha ! [Griffin laughs faintly.'] 

Thor. [To Griffin.] Andtoyour's? 

Griff. [Beioildered.] Yes. 

Thor. [To audience.'] And, I trust, to your's. Then, as 
we've arrived at the eend of our journey, all that remains is to 
thank our passengers for their kind support — let the steam 
off and put out the fires, trusting, ladies and gentlemen, that 
you will not regret your short trip by our "fast train — high 
pressure — express "" 



» 



Thoroughfare, 
[r.] Griffin. Biffin, [l.] 

Curtain. 



THE END. 




C 74 






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